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ON DUTY AND OFF 



ON DUTY AND OFF 



LETTERS OF 
ELIZABETH CABOT PUTNAM 



Written in France 
Majy 1 9 1 7 — September, 1 9 1 8 



THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE 
I9I9 



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COPYRIGHT, I919, BY MARIAN C. PUTNAM 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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APR 15 !9I9 



ICI.A525078 



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To the memory of 
(\^ James Jackson Putnam 



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who found happiness in the beauty 

of sky and field and in the service 

of his fellow-men. 



This book is made up from home 
letters written, it need hardly be 
said, without thought of publica- 
tion. Each one of the men and 
women working in "the zone of the 
rear" has seen the drama of the 
war from a slightly different angle, 
and has his own contribution to 
make to our knowledge of what has 
happened. To add another bit to the 
great mosaic is my excuse for offering 
my daughter's letters to the public. 

M. c. P. 



CONTENTS 

I. An American Hospital for French Soldiers i 

II. An Amemcan Hospital for French Soldiers 

(continued) 47 

III. U.S. Air Service, Paris Headquarters 78 

IV. ''Bombed last night, 

Bombed the night before" 131 

V. After ChAteau Thierry 179 

VI. A U.S. Base Hospital 186 



ON DUTY AND OFF 

CHAPTER I 

AN AMERICAN HOSPITAL FOR FRENCH SOLDIERS 

On board S.S. Chicago 

May 22, 1917 

When I left Father on the dock I thought I should 
certainly burst ; I never felt so awfully in my life. I 
looked everywhere for him on the wharf until the 
boat sailed, but it is just as well I did n't see him, 
for I should probably have gone on shore again for 
good if I had. I went in to look for steamer letters and 
could find only one, which was rather a staggerer, — 
but about fifteen turned up later, as well as two 
books and a great basket of fruit from Uncle Frank. 
This boat is the most minute thing imaginable and 
is filled twice as full as it ought to be because the boat 
of the week before was taken off. In consequence 
there is (for over three hundred passengers) a salon 
holding about twenty, and a tiny bar-smoking-room ; 
not enough steamer chairs to go round, two '* serv- 
ices" of the* meals; four people in rooms that are 
barely equipped for two. In our stateroom there are 
two washstands, two tiny drawers, four double 
hooks, and that is all. Absolutely nothing in the way 
of a cupboard or closet. My room-mates are three 
young Frenchwomen. Two are actresses (one of 



2 ON DUTY AND OFF 

them married and returning to a small boy) coming 
back after an eight months* tour in Canada. The 
other has been over (leaving three young children) to 
spend several months with her husband who is buy- 
ing horses in the United States for the French Gov- 
ernment and has been for two years. She is much 
higher class than the others but not a particle more 
amiable. They are all very good-natured, though not 
exactly considerate — leaving the electric light burn- 
ing all night, for example, and conversing at length 
when they are called for their bath at six a.m. How- 
ever, I am delighted to be with them, for I learn how 
to apply white-washes, lip and cheek rouge, eyebrow 
pencils, curling irons and fake curls — as well as some 
French. They go to bed at eleven, read till Heaven 
knows when, have baths at six, go to sleep again, 
have breakfast in bed, and spend the whole rest of 
the morning dressing. If any of us were sick it would 
be awful, but we're not. For my part, I never felt 
better. The first two days were absolutely perfect, and 
so warm that you sat round without a coat. To- 
day was much colder, overcast, and fairly rough — 
most marvellous electric green half hidden inside the 
waves — spray way over the lifeboats on the upper 
deck. 

I am sitting (evening) in a perfect hullabaloo — 
the dining-room full of men (except for one unbeliev- 
able siren) smoking, singing to the ukulele, and 
shouting generally. The siren has, I believe, been act- 
ing as a model for some advertising concern in St. 
Louis, where she was considered so bad that they are 



FRENCH WOUNDED 3 

shipping her home. I am not sure whether or not she 
is French. She is absurdly rouged and belladonna-ed, 
has champagne hair done very high over cushions, 
and wears enormous ear-rings, white silk stockings 
and high-heeled slippers, and a very slight costume. 
Mr. Sedgwick assures me she consumes large quanti- 
ties of champagne whenever it goes, and it goes very 
often, as you get here for two dollars what you pay 
eight dollars for in New York. 

The last two evenings I have sat out on the deck 
near enough to a group of excellent singers to be able 
to sing with them unperceived. One evening a man 
came along and sat with me, in the pitch dark (no 
lights allowed, all windows covered), and we had a 
long and pleasant talk (he was a travelling man from 
Oklahoma), but I have no idea what he looks like and 
he probably does n't realize that and thinks I cut him 
dead next day. You see he saw me when he opened 
the door to let me in, but I did n't like to turn round 
and stare at him. 

A brilliant pink sunset to-night promises fair 
weather for to-morrow. We don't want it too fair, as 
submarines can't work well in rough seas. We have 
had one "drill" which consisted in putting on a life- 
preserver and standing at a given place on the deck. 

May 26 

I don't learn as much French as you 'd hope from 

my room-mates, as we arrange (or rather I arrange, 

for I must say the two ladies of the stage do just as 

they please) never to be there together except in the 



4 ON DUTY AND OFF 

middle of the night. The superiority of the wife of the 
horse-buyer becomes every day more apparent. 

The last two evenings I have Hstened to a steady 
rush of talk from a most ingenuous and incongruous 
lad. He has told me all his affairs without a question 
from me, and from the amount he knows about other * 
people on the boat I do not flatter myself that it is my 
wonderfully sympathetic nature that has drawn him 
out. He comes from a weirdly named town in Illinois, 
where his father is a foreman in a machine-shop. He 
is a mechanic himself and apparently earns upward 
of two hundred dollars a month, though he is only 
twenty-one. He finds he can get no further without a 
college degree, so when he has saved enough he plans 
to go to Tech. He lies there in his chair thinking of 
wonderful ways to make money, and he is going to 
make all he can in his off- time abroad — writing for 
newspapers, etc. He talks a great deal about money, 
but I gather that he wants it in order to see more and 
learn more. He has told me all about his "gurrl- 
friend" whose graduation from high school, for which 
he had waited four years, took place the night after 
he left. He keeps enunciating high moral truths in the 
most genuine and extraordinary way ; and he is much 
puzzled about some of the Bible — for instance, he 
has heard several versions of Daniel in the lions' den 
and doesn't see how they can all be literally true! 
He wears light gloves and minds tobacco smoke; 
and he has shovelled forty tons of coal a day into a 
furnace, when twenty is what the average stoker 
can do. 



FRENCH WOUNDED 5 

The queer thing about the passengers is that they 
are almost all between twenty and thirty. There may 
be some few boys younger, and ten or so older, up to 
forty, perhaps. 

It is raining to-day. We have had no sun since 
Monday. We are due Tuesday night or Wednesday 
morning. No one seems to worry about submarines 
— the French least of all. 

May 27 
This is the most perfect day imaginable — just the 
weather for the Kayoshk and a little too favorable for 
submarines. If the sleeping accommodations were de- 
cent, and the weather stayed like this, I should wish 
the voyage three weeks longer. 

Last night most of us slept in our clothes and felt it 
a great waste when we woke up safe and sound this 
morning. I am never parted from Arthur's waistcoat 
and Aunt Amy's whistle. I even slept in the waist- 
coat. To-night we are to make no noise on deck and 
not have even the glow of a cigarette. The injunction 
against noise is most necessary, and thanks to it I 
hope to get more sleep to-night. . . . The boats are all 
swung out, ready to be lowered. We expect to get in 
to-morrow night, and when we do I am going to tele- 
graph to the H6tel des Etats Unis for a room and also 
to Bob on the chance that he can meet me. 

It makes you feel awfully queer to be so near possi- 
ble submarines. I am sure, though, that if we are hit 
we shall get off in the boats all right. 



6 ON DUTY AND OFF 

lo p.m. 

After half an hour*s hard work I am ready for bed 
and feel that I must tell you about my preparations. 
I have to look decently, in case we are coules during 
the night, and yet be as comfortable as possible for 
the uneventful night we shall probably have. I have 
on about all my regular clothes, including two heavy 
underpockets with passport, etc., my huge whistle 
round my neck, and the Neversink Waistcoat on. In 
the pocket of the latter is a pair of spectacles. Rolled 
up at the head of my bunk is my long coat, and in its 
pockets three cakes of Dot, a piece of string, and a 
case holding hairpins and clean handkerchiefs. I sit 
here roaring with laughter to myself, and yet the 
purser has just been to Mr. Sedgwick to say he un- 
derstood he had undressed last night and he ought not 
to to-night. You know, really the time you most mind 
the thought of submarines is when you are in your 
bath. I spend about five minutes arranging my clothes 
on pegs so that I can get into them in an instant's 
time, but even then it is nervous work. 

Well, I will turn in; but imagine whether I shall be 
warm, waistcoat and all ! Not a porthole on the ship 
open! 

May 29 
They say we get well into the river at ten or eleven 
to-night and land early to-morrow morning. This is 
our last day and I can't believe it. This curious ad- 
venture called "going to France" is about to begin. 
I feel rather swamped. 



FRENCH WOUNDED 7 

Neuilly-sur- Seine f June$ 
Well, I am actually here. It all seems so natural 
that I can't believe I am not still at home, in a way. 
I suppose you would like to know all kinds of silly lit- 
tle things about how I arrived and what I did next 
and so forth. It takes so long to write, even on the 
typewriter, and I ought to be studying my French 
lesson and my anatomy. Everything takes so much 
time! It takes half an hour to get in to Paris. 

Well, to go back to the boat. The last afternoon I 
was down in my stateroom, in more or less undress, 
packing, when the steward came rushing down and 
shouted to the boys in the room opposite: '*A tor- 
pedo!" The boys tore off at once and I thought our 
last hour had come, and started, just as I was, for the 
deck. Luckily, before I got very far I realized that 
every one was taking it very calmly; and it turned 
out to be a boat that had been sent by the French 
Government to convoy us. That evening, about half 
past ten, the canvas sides to the deck were taken 
down and all lights lighted, and we were safe. It really 
was very exciting. We were then in the mouth of the 
river and anchored there for the night on account of 
the tide. In the morning I made a slight error in time 
(having long since broken my watch) and arrived on 
deck at six-thirty instead of eight-thirty. We were in 
a most lovely river, with the greenest shores you ever 
saw and little white castles or lighthouses or some- 
thing, and a large fleet of square-rigged vessels — 
which have been pulled out of their hiding-places in 
order to free the modern boats. 



8 ON DUTY AND OFF 

All morning was spent in the most hectic endeavor 
to get our luggage vis6ed by the douane and checked 
for the right place ; anything worse managed I have 
never seen. But after lunch, with free minds we sat 
down to enjoy the countryside. I won't try to de- 
scribe it, because there is n't time in this letter, but it 
was almost jungle-like in its richness, and there were 
terraced vineyards and castles and everything one 
could ask. We got on shore by four and dumped our 
things at the hotel. I decided to forego my military 
pass and pay my own fare, as I should have had to sit 
up all night in a third-class compartment with two 
other women and five men. By spending the night at 
Bordeaux we had time to visit a most unusually 
beautiful cathedral and three old churches — one 
dating from the eleventh century, where Henry Plan- 
tagenet married Eleanor of something or other. I had 
to do all the talking in French ! 

The journey next day was well worth waiting for. 
Such enchanting villages, with the cottages all made 
of the same kind of stone, with reddish tiled roofs 
grown over with moss, gardens full of roses, and 
everywhere the most marvellous green trees of a thou- 
sand different sorts. I am longing, on the way home, 
to stop off at some one of the little villages, for they 
are really too adorable. Some were built on the side of 
a steep hill, just as they are in Italy. And every- 
where masses and masses of white locust, all in full 
blossom. 

Of course I Ve left out a thousand things — such as 
the queer costumes in Bordeaux, and the regiments 



FRENCH WOUNDED 9 

coming and going; we saw two negro or Algerian regi- 
ments. In Bordeaux, too, being in a hotel right at the 
railway station, we saw many sad partings between 
families and men, and many rapturous meetings. 

We reached Paris at half-past eight in the evening 
and drove straight to the Etats Unis — and there 
was Bob sitting right there, writing. He looks finely 
and about ten years younger than when he left. I was 
rarely gladder to see any one. 

The next morning I reported at the Ambulance to 
the very charming and agreeable Mrs. Munroe, who 
told me to get my permis de s6jour and come Monday 
morning to be vaccinated (I should have been before 
coming) and measured for my uniform and have my 
work explained. Which I did and it was. Then I went 
to see J.*s friends and found them more than cordial 
and so attractive, except in that they could n't take 
me till the middle of July. Thence to Madame Lauth, 
whose address Mrs. Parkman gave me, and I am 
there now, until the middle of July, when she goes 
out of town and I go to the Henris'. I really am in 
great luck, for they are a large family of interesting 
and very musical people. The father is a doctor, a 
specialist in tuberculosis, and is a perfect darling. He 
is about sixty-five, I should say, and had given up 
practice before the war; but now he spends ten to 
twelve hours a day in the tuberculosis ward of a 
French military hospital. Even so, he finds energy to 
give me a French lesson which I enjoy to the utmost — 
Father would like to hear him mimic my e — he shouts 
at me when I do wrong and pats my hand or hugs 



lo ON DUTY AND OFF 

me when I do right — and then, later in the evening, 
plays on the piano or *cello. The son, Henri, of seven- 
teen or eighteen, is almost a genius at music and can 
play anything, right off the bat, on the violin or pi- 
ano. There is a daughter of twenty-four and three 
young French girls, boarders, who are studying one 
thing or another, and an American woman. They all 
talk French all the time, naturally, and I can't say I 
get an awful lot of the general conversation, — be- 
cause they talk about real things and that is very dif- 
ferent from saying that you want a hot bath or a cup 
of tea. My French is adequate for getting what I 
need, but not for talking. However, I am sure to 
learn, and I shall have plenty of time at the Ambu- 
lance to talk with the men to my heart's content. 
The house is a regular city house, but has a large gar- 
den behind, with big trees, where we have our supper. 
Heaven be praised, I think I can hold down the job. 
In fact it apparently will not take all my time, so, 
later, when I have mastered French and got the job 
down to a fine point, I shall ask for more work. My 
work as historian is about as follows. Each patient 
(all French, of course) comes in with a certain num- 
ber of papers scribbled in atrocious handwritings, 
sometimes in pencil, from a poste de secours or other 
hospitals, and on entering the Ambulance a card is 
given him to be filled out by me. From the various 
papers I find out his name, address, regiment, ward 
and bed number, where wounded, when, by what, 
first dressing, how soon, following dressings (oh, no, 
I forgot, you only get the first six things from the 



FRENCH WOUNDED u 

papers, and also what the first diagnosis was; the 
others you get from him); also what operations he 
has had and what they were. If he has an X-ray you 
examine it and try to find out for yourself what it 
shows. You try to gather what the present diagnosis 
is, and if you can't, you ask the doctor. The doctor is 
as good-natured as possible, but it is apparently poor 
form to ask him anything you could possibly guess 
for yourself. But what you can't guess, and the final 
note of evacuation, you ask him for. All this informa- 
tion has to be written both in French and in English. 
I have borrowed an anatomy book from the doctor 
with whom I live and shall have to learn all the 
bones, etc., in French. 

Curiously enough, you don't seem much nearer 
the war here than you do at home. Of course, there 
are all the wounded men, when you have time to take 
them in, and every other person — more — in the 
street is in heavy mourning; and the car conductors 
are women ; and sugar is scarce. But Paris is just the 
same big, busy city it was when we were here before, 
as far as I can see. If I were more equal to taking in 
the talk I suppose I should know more. Of course, so 
far, I have spent almost all my time getting a permis 
de s6jour, which I have n't yet achieved. My photo- 
graphs were too big and we had to traipse all around 
to find a photographer — the first six we tried be- 
ing closed "a cause de mobilisation." In that kind of 
practical way — too little coal to have hot baths or 
to have the elevators in the big stores run more than 
half the day — you do feel the difference. 



12 ON DUTY AND OFF 

On Sunday Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Davis and I 
went to the Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame, and then 
Mr. Sedgwick took me to lunch with a cousin of his 
who works at the Ambulance. Mr. Sedgwick has cer- 
tainly been good to me. This afternoon when I am in 
town — I have had to go in every day since I came 
— I am going to try to get a ticket for a service next 
Sunday at Notre Dame in memory of fallen Belgians. 
I read about it in the paper and I am sure it will be 
interesting. Sunday afternoon I took a walk in the 
Bois. Everything is such a distance here ! And it is as 
hot as July — with cool nights, however. 

June 9 
I got my first letters from home yesterday and you 
may believe I was glad to have them. 

I wish Father were living here because he would 
like this family so much. I am really uncommonly 
glad to be with them, and Madame Lauth said to tell 
you they were tres contents to have me and felt that 
I was a real friend. People come to the house more or 
less, so I have a chance to hear them all talk to- 
gether — though I may say right here that I am aw- 
fully slow at learning, even to understand. Dr. 
Lauth is a charmer and I love the lessons I have with 
him. I read long poems of Lamartine and selections 
from Chateaubriand, and he criticises. My e is like a 
bleat. 

I wish each day were six times as long, so that I 
could spend a whole day at the Ambulance, another 
learning French and reading ''War Wounds," and a 



FRENCH WOUNDED 13 

third in visiting people and places and writing letters. 
To-morrow is Sunday and I can answer some of my 
steamer letters, but I have to arrange my wash for 
three weeks and fix my tabliers d'infirmiere, which 
are too small in the waist and too long. I leave here at 
three-thirty to go to Notre Dame, and am counting 
on doing lots of studying. 

Later 
We have just been having a wonderful evening of 
music — a Beethoven trio for *cello, violin, and pi- 
ano, and other trios, and a Bach thing for voice ac- 
companied by the three, and selections from *' Or- 
pheus" for the same. Henri, the lad of seventeen, 
who finishes his lyc6e in a few weeks, played alter- 
nately violin and piano, and his teacher, an orchestra 
leader, played first violin. Finally Henri played mar- 
vellously on the piano ; and afterwards his mother just 
said, ** Think of all that music going to the war. War 
is cruel," She has lost her older boy in the war al- 
ready, though from diphtheria, not from wounds — 
and Henri starts training, in artillery as an engineer, 
as soon as he graduates. He is an uncommonly nice 
boy, with the best manners, fundamental and super- 
ficial, I ever saw. Poor Madame Lauth is a person of 
very strong feelings, very active and keen, as if she 
would soon burn herself out. 

You have to laugh a great deal at the Ambulance 
because the men laugh all the time. It is so abso- 
lutely different from an ordinary hospital. Most of 
the men are in excellent condition, and when they are 



14 ON DUTY AND OFF 

not new, or newly operated on, or having their 
wounds dressed, they are apparently in uproariously 
good spirits. They believe in taking one day at a time, 
I guess, and the relief of being out of the trenches 
must be great. Anyhow, they are always making 
jokes and poking fun at each other and at the nurses. 
Most of them try to learn a little English, and I shall 
get some kind of French- English book for beginners. 
I think also that I can read aloud to them — Ars6ne 
Lupin — to our mutual edification. In the morning, 
with dressings, etc., everything is very busy, but in 
the afternoon there is a pleasant sense of leisure, and 
I can foresee much delightful companionship with 
the men when I am abreast with my job. The doctor 
is a Pittsburgh man. He is very good-natured and 
ready to be asked any questions and to show you 
what is going on in a surgical way. He says I may see 
some operations later. There is no point in my going 
into a description of the wounds for I don't know 
enough; they are terrible and when you see the men 
laughing and fooling you can't believe theirs are as 
bad ; but then you see theirs dressed the next morn- 
ing and they are just as bad. Sometimes the wounds 
are very evident, for they expose them to the sun, in 
the window or in the garden. And speaking of gar- 
dens, one of the chief rose-growers of France is a 
worker at the Ambulance and he has given beds of 
the most beautiful roses I have ever imagined — more 
beautiful. They are good-sized roses on low bushes 
and are every shade from pale yellow to deep red — 
unbelievable shades of orange and buff. The whole 



FRENCH WOUNDED 15 

hospital is most attractive — at least in this weather 
— and some one sends in flowers (of which the streets 
are full) for the wards every week. 

There are two enormous dining-rooms full of peo- 
ple, for all the ambulanciers of the Paris Service eat 
there, too. My work is all on one corridor; seven 
wards of ten beds each — 63 to 69, tell Jamie, on the 
ground floor, across the end farthest from the front 
door. I should imagine this hospital was as well 
equipped as any at home, though, of course, I don't 
know. Four of my wards are of oflicers and three of 
poilus. 

June II 
I have only just begun to get into my work, 
though it seems to me as if last Monday, when I be- 
gan doing more or less, was a hundred years ago ; it is 
extraordinary to think that it was only a week ago 
that I was vaccinated and introduced to my prede- 
cessor and measured for my — cap and gown, I was 
going to say, and it is cap and dress. I wear — or 
shall when the dressmaker sees fit to bring me my 
dress — a rather bright Copenhagen blue dress with 
white muslin collars and cuffs, a big white apron cov- 
ering almost all the skirt and having a square tab in 
front with shoulder straps, and a little white muslin 
cap a good deal like what girls wear in a choir. 

One gets awfully fond of the men almost at once, 
they are so very friendly, and so childlike in their 
capacity for enjoyment. It gives them the most ex- 
quisite pleasure to say "Good morrning, Mees Pet* 



i6 ON DUTY AND OFF 

nam/' in English; they only know my name in one 
ward, where they were trying especially to learn 
English and where I insisted on their calling me prop- 
erly. Otherwise they just call all the auxiliaries 
"Mees." To-day I met one of my blesses on the 
street, en permission, and he recognized me before I 
fairly saw him, and you can't imagine what a thrill it 
gave me — I feel as though I were really part and 
parcel of it now. 

My actual work won't be hard at all when once I 
have learned the vocabulary. Just at present it is a 
little puzzling to have to translate the diagnosis of 
entrance and discharge, and the treatment, into 
French. The doctor knows almost no French. How- 
ever, it is a limited vocabulary, and I am learning it 
— I know all the ordinary bones and organs and a 
good many operative words. The hardest thing is tak- 
ing the notes that have been written by hand — and 
a villainous one — by French doctors in the ambu- 
lances the bless6 has been to before reaching Paris, 
and making sense out of them enough to boil them 
down, in case there was an operation, or pass them 
over if there has been none — just getting from them 
the original diagnosis and the vulnerative agency, 
which is almost invariably 6clat d'obus. I think I shall 
learn a good deal, for I have a very nice doctor and 
can always watch the dressings and ask any questions 
I want — provided the m^decin chef is not present ; 
if he is, the strictest silence is preserved, although he 
is a very pleasant, understanding, rather young man, 
who certainly does n't look as if he were a stickler 



FRENCH WOUNDED 17 

for form. I dare say that might be the same in any 
hospital. 

... I have been building blocks this evening with 
an awfully cunning and fearfully bright little girl of 
four, daughter of the cook here, who informs you, 
with questioning, that her father is "a la guerre'* 
where **il tue les Boches," and that she does n't like 
**Guillaume" **parcequ'il a fait mal a Papa" — all 
with the utmost cheerfulness. If anything goes wrong 
with her she says, "C'est la guerre." Her poor father 
has n't been heard from since the first month of the 
war, and no one knows whether he is alive or dead* 

June 13 
I wish Jamie were here, to see if the Ambulance 
has advanced a good deal since 191 5. Was Dakin's 
solution the thing then? It is a disinfectant which 
hangs in a glass vessel over the bed and is turned on 
every so often, and — I thought allowed to run for 
an hour at a time. Thus, when the nurse left the other 
day and told me to turn on two Dakin things at two 
o'clock, I almost inundated one man by leaving it 
running. Fortunately there was very little in the ves- 
sel, and the other man was able to make me under- 
stand the idea — namely, that you turn it on for two 
seconds only. But I spent an awful night, that night, 
because I suddenly remembered that the solution 
burns the skin and that the skin around the wound is 
carefully covered by oiled silk for that reason — and 
I knew the man's back had got wet and had visions of 
him with no skin left. Next day he was as well as 



i8 ON DUTY AND OFF 

ever. I imagine the extensions are much more elabo- 
rate than when Jamie was here. I will write him about 
some of them, some day at the Ambulance. . . . 

June 17 
The event of the week has been the arrival of 
Pershing — whom the French call by every name ex- 
cept his own, including "Pere Ch6ri" — and that 
was very exciting. Not that anything in particular 
happened — they had not put his arrival in the pa- 
pers, and though there was a very enthusiastic crowd 
it was not a large one — at the Crillon Hotel, that is; 
I believe it was bigger at the station. I was in the 
hotel lobby when he came in, so I got a good look at 
him and thought him a very decent representative of 
the race. After he went upstairs I went out, thinking 
all was over, and found that Joffre was just coming. 
It made you weep to hear the French cheer Joffre ; I 
never heard anything like it; and they all looked so 
devoted to him and so full of joy at his return. Of 
course, Pershing did not get anything like the en- 
thusiasm Joffre did — quite properly — on this first 
appearance, but then the crowd started crying, ** Au 
balcon! Au balcon!" with a rhythm like a cheer, 
and Pershing came out on his balcony and bowed and 
smiled, and then there was a roar of **Vive I'Ame- 
rique," I can assure you. It made me wildly proud and 
perfectly sick. I am as bad as Aunt B, these days, for 
crying, and if I am to get on with this letter I must 
leave this subject and tell you about the service last 
Sunday at Notre Dame. Except this : I waved my flag 



FRENCH WOUNDED 19 

up above the crowd when Pershing was in the bal- 
cony and felt sure he saw it and smiled at me — but 
as I heard four other people say the same thing, I sup- 
pose it was not so. 

I enclose the programme of the service at Notre 
Dame. It really was the most beautiful singing I al- 
most ever heard — coming from everywhere and no- 
where at once. We were at the very back of the church. 
I think the music was almost more wonderful there, 
where it seemed to be born and not made. The organ- 
ist, you will notice, was that very same Widor whose 
name appears, as composer, on every organ recital 
you ever went to in Boston. The long discourse, of 
course, I could not understand — we were not nearly 
near enough to hear the words distinctly — and we 
could not see any of the ceremonial. However, the 
music took most of the time. After the service, I went 
with Mr. Sedgwick to a very gay restaurant called 
the **Cafe de Paris" where we had the most delicious 
— and far the most expensive, thank Heaven — 
meal I have ever eaten. Food, like everything else, is 
horribly expensive, most of the ordinary things having 
tripled in price; and coal is terrible — the amount 
that used to cost forty francs now costs about two 
hundred and thirty francs. For that reason hot water 
is a great luxury and washing poorly done. 

The day I went in to greet Pershing I saw a hand 
waving through an iron fence, and there was Louisa, 
looking more ridiculously natural than any one I 
have seen yet; no amount of foreign country will af- 
fect her. After a few minutes Penelope came to join 



20 ON DUTY AND OFF 

her. They are coming out Tuesday to see the Am- 
bulance. 

Another thing I did last week was to visit the 
** Petit Ouvroir du Gros Caillou," where the girls and 
women of the quarter are given sewing to do — ex- 
quisite lingerie — and their families looked after gen- 
erally, You go through the door of a perfectly ordinary 
house, and come out into a courtyard that is almost 
like Guillaume le Conquerant. The houses go round 
three sides of the court, which has trees and shrubs 
and a tiny vegetable garden in it; the part of the 
house opposite the Ouvroir has carved window 
frames and balconies, and kings and queens painted 
in faded colors on the wooden wall. Paris is so unex- 
pected : you are always going through houses into de- 
lightful little courts; but this is far the best I have 
seen. 

My work is pretty well in hand now. I want to 
learn a little nursing, but I don't want to let go of the 
history work, for if there is an attack near here there 
will be plenty of that to do and I would rather do it 
than just nursing. The men don't seem to want to 
make things, much, so I shan't have a chance to do 
much that way. One of the English nurses with whom 
I talked said they were so different from the Tom- 
mies, who always wanted to be doing and making 
things; but these men liked to have things done for 
them. They do certainly enjoy talking, though, and 
so do I. And they like little attentions. I spent the 
first of my give-away money yesterday — two francs ! 
— on some sweet peas for the two worst cases — 



FRENCH WOUNDED 21 

young men, both of them, with such sad faces. Their 
cases, I dare say, will not be bad eventually, but for 
some time past they have been suffering greatly. On 
our Fourth of July I plan to give each of my seventy 
men a tiny bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers, 
just a boutonniere; I know they will like that. I 
think, however, that most of my money will go into 
artificial legs. The Government provides only a 
broomstick, and such good legs can be got with 
money — good to use and good-looking. Then there 
is also the question of providing for the wives when 
they come up to visit the men; they get a reduction 
in the railway fare, but I don't think they are put up 
free anywhere after they get here. In the hospital 
the men are really very well provided for. There is a 
French and English library, where they can go or 
have books sent down, and there are plenty of pic- 
ture puzzles; but they don't seem to be used much by 
the men in my corridor — either puzzles or books. 
Any one who wants to do bead-work or make baskets 
or do other such things is taught how and given ma- 
terials. It is awfully different in the little country 
hospitals. I talked yesterday with a nurse who had 
been in a small hospital at Lyons and she said the 
people of the town seemed to take no interest in the 
hospital and never visited the men or brought them 
any flowers or fruit, and that the hospital fare was 
not nearly as good as it is here. 

To return to the men ; — there are two entirely 
different kinds of enjoyment to get from them and 
give to them, according to whether they are poilus or 



22 ON DUTY AND OFF 

officers. Of course, that is natural, only it took me 
several days to find it out. With the poilus you be- 
have as if they were children, and jolly them along, 
and they jolly you back and are always shouting out 
jokes and making more or less noise. I read aloud to 
two of them and they correct my pronunciation and 
make terrific jokes about the 6cole and the profes- 
seur, and insist on my asking for permission of just 
so many hours whenever I am not coming that day. 
And they smoke while I read, and knock the ashes 
out on to the floor. The officers are just the most 
delightful, cultivated, and charming lads that ever 
were — young, almost every one, about twenty-two. 
They have their own china and their own clothes, 
more or less, and colored silk socks, and have their 
shoes shined for them, and get to be very particular 
about their appearance. There is one aviator, in par- 
ticular, wounded (to his great disgust) in his very 
first battle, who has no mustache and therefore looks 
very homelike, who is a dream of beauty in his violet 
pajamas, and just as agreeable as can be. But he 
wants what he wants when he wants it! All these 
particular officers speak excellent English. 

The weeks go like flashes when I am in them and 
seem a hundred years long in looking back. The ther- 
mometer registers from 82° to 84° and feels worse. 
Write very often — everybody about once a week, I 
should say. 

June 19 

Penelope and Louisa have just been out here, 
seeing the Ambulance and then coming to tea chez 



FRENCH WOUNDED 23 

Madame Lauth, and my word, they are nice! While 
they are waiting for their hospital, which is being 
moved from St. Valerie to Evreux, they are working 
at the French Wounded and at a canteen at the Gare 
de I'Est. I am going there with them Saturday from 
five to eight and think I shall arrange to go regularly 
two afternoons a week. They serve meals at the sta- 
tion all day long to men who have come from the coun- 
try on their way to the front and can*t afford a decent 
meal in Paris, and men en permission who are on 
their way to the country. The girls say the place is al- 
ways going full force, every one working just as hard as 
she can, and very dirty. It will make a good contrast 
to the Ambulance, where everything is airy and sunny 
and in perfect order and cleanliness. 

You never could guess what I did Sunday last — a 
day when it was 89° : I went to Paris because I had 
never delivered that bundle that was sent me from 
California and went way over to the Latin Quarter 
and up five flights of stairs and there found a delight- 
ful young woman in a lovely pink silk negligee, who 
showed me her charming apartment (overlooking a 
huge convent-yard full of trees, and an old convent) 
and gave me a bath ! — in a lovely new American 
bathroom, all white porcelain, with cologne in the 
water and a great big bath-towel. — The first real bath 
I have had since the first night in Paris. I shall never 
forget that bath. And she invited me to come in and 
have another sometime! Such hospitality is perfec- 
tion. 

The weather has seemed very hot, though it has 



24 ON DUTY AND OFF 

not gone above 89°, and I can't tell you how I pity 
those men lying in bed with three or four inches of 
dressings round their arms and legs, or in plaster 
casts. If there is any wind it blows through the wards 
beautifully, but most days there is n't. 

I saw a girl to-day who had just landed in Bor- 
deaux. They were fired at twice and sent seven shots 
in response; two days from land! But of course you 
have seen that in the papers — probably before I 
knew it. She had n't slept for seventy-two hours. 

June 25 
How the boys can stand the pain as they do, I 
can't imagine. There is one awfully good-looking boy 
of twenty-two, Michel Aurnaque by name, who has a 
compound fracture of the right radius and ulna and 
of the left tibia and fibula. He has an overhead exten- 
sion of the arm and leg, and the leg fracture was so 
near the foot that a steel bar had to be put through 
the heel for an extension of eight pounds! It was put 
on the loth of May and had just been taken off when 
I began work, about June 4th. He never said a word 
while all that was going on ; but he certainly made a 
fuss the other day when he had a boil behind his ear! 
He is a farmer from the borders of France and Spain. 
I went the round of my wards with the dressing- 
cart the other day — I don't mean doing anything, 
just watching. I saw the forearm of a boy which 
seemed to amount to almost nothing — just part of 
the bone (the full length, pretty nearly, but split) 
and the skin and flesh about half the way round; all 



FRENCH WOUNDED 25 

the rest gone, from elbow (interior surface) to wrist ; 
the X-ray when he came showed the two bones bent 
almost into a Z ; he also had a high amputation of one 
leg, but the arm was worse. 

I have not seen any operations yet, but the doctor 
will take me almost any time, I think. The face cases 
are the most terrible. There is one man with about 
half his face gone and a great round hole in his fore- 
head; but the interesting part of him is that his one 
good eye is so full of good-humor and genialness that 
he is positively attractive to look upon. When Jamie 
was here did they have a case of plaster casts of face 
cases, first one when the man came in, then one or 
two in later stages, including the last? It is marvel- 
lous; only, of course, a plaster cast does not show the 
scars and little details like that. 

George J. turned up here at supper- time the other 
day and took me in town to dine — very delicious, I 
can assure you. It was great to see him: he is always 
one of the nicest people I know. 

Paris is a funny place about food and other things. 
The shops are filled with beautiful and gorgeous 
clothes and the Rue de Rivoli has just the same show- 
ing of luxurious trifles as ever. The other day I went 
to call on a most agreeable Frenchwoman of about 
forty-five who lives alone and supports herself, still, 
by giving bridge lessons at twenty francs an hour. 

Saturday night I went in and served dinners to 
permissionnaires returning to the front or coming 
from it, at the Gare de I'Est. I can tell you it's quite a 
scramble and I love doing it. They pay fifteen sous at 



26 ON DUTY AND OFF 

the door and get a slip with *'potage et pain," "vi- 
ande et legumes," *'biere," "dessert," and "cafe," 
printed on it. I take the slips as they sit down at 
table, wait till all twelve seats are filled, and then run 
madly up to the serving counter with a huge tray and 
get twelve bowls of soup, leaving in exchange twelve 
"potage" torn off the slips, and run back spilling the 
soup at every step ; but no one would care if I deluged 
myself, the floor, and everything else in sight, as far 
as the mess was concerned. I put the soup before 
them, tear off and get twelve beers, leaving my 
"biere" slips, and by that time they are ready for the 
meat and vegetables and I have to find out how many 
prefer meat and how many fish. When they are safely 
at that course the real trouble begins, for above their 
heads is a printed list of "supplements" — second 
helps, salads, and wine — which they can have by 
paying extra; but the prices are printed in centimes, 
and you are told about them in sous, and the men 
give you one sou, two sous fifty centimes (which is 
Heaven knows how many centimes !) and one franc. 
You have to make sure every one has paid, make the 
change, and remember that it is one salad, two beers, 
one wine, one vegetable without meat, one meat 
without vegetables, one five-centimes piece of bread, 
and one ten-centimes piece of bread. I can tell you 
what, histories in French and English are absolutely 
nothing compared with that. Then, when they have 
finished (you conversing sweetly with the two near- 
est in odd minutes about the best method of learning 
a foreign language, and when the war will be over), 



FRENCH WOUNDED 27 

you pile up the dishes any old way on to your waiter, 
go staggering down the room with it, return and 
brush the slops (there is no other word for it) off on 
to the floor, and set the table for the next comers — 
spoon and fork (they are supposed to have their own 
knives), enormous piece of bread — I guess that's all. 
In spite of its sounding so unattractive, the food 
really looks very good, and they get good big helpings. 
Dessert was cherries or cheese, and every one had 
coffee. It was great fun, and I have signed on to go 
from five to eight every Tuesday and Saturday eve- 
ning. 

There is the greatest difference of opinion about 
the state of the war and the importance of our as- 
sistance. But I get to feel more and more as if our 
coming might be the one thing to turn the balance. I 
do hope we shall send men very soon. 

June 2'j 
Last night I was so tired I lay down all dressed and 
slept for an hour before going to bed. It was my sec- 
ond trip to the Gare de I'Est, and the trays were 
heavy and I did n't get through till half-past eight 
instead of eight, and I took the wrong Metro, so I 
went a much longer way home and had to stand most 
of the way. I have now been here about four weeks 
and not once have I had a man offer me his seat — or 
seen him do it to any other woman — and the way 
they push in the subway is inconceivable. American 
men certainly have better manners than Frenchmen. 
I would n't mind if they were soldiers, for you feel 



28 ON DUTY AND OFF 

that they have earned anything (a seat, I mean), but 
they are not. The Gare de TEst is great fun, and last 
night I acquired a filleul, — if I can make out the in- 
volved address he gave me ; I guess one of the men at 
the Ambulance can. He was the last to leave the 
table and he looked absolutely miserable (he is not a 
beauty) and on the verge of tears, and said, ''Mainte- 
nant la boucherie " and then went on to explain some- 
thing about his family which I did not fully under- 
stand, but I think he said his two brothers had been 
killed (though I also heard something about "ampu- 
tation") and his mother had died. Anyhow, he said 
he now had no one, and I said, '* Et pas de marraine?" 
and he said, '* Pas de marraine " ; — et voila. I hope I 
shall be able to reach him, or he will think I 'm faith- 
less. Of course I never thought to give him my ad- 
dress. 

Yesterday I really felt, for about the first time, 
that my diddling around the Ambulance with the 
bless6s really counted for something, for one lad con- 
fessed to being bored to tears and I started him off on 
a picture puzzle (though he is flat on his back, al- 
most) and three or four others came and helped him ; 
and when I went in to give my English lesson I found 
the man was very nervous and depressed over the 
operation he was about to have in half an hour and 
the lesson quite took his mind off that and he learned 
to say ''Good luck" ; and then I met another man, in 
the garden, who asked me if I had n't any more of the 
"jeux" — picture puzzles. So that goes. And they 
have stiffened up the histories a little — making me 



FRENCH WOUNDED 29 

add the diagnoses and interventions of the previous 
hospitals ; so I guess I can find enough to do. Perhaps 
I had better go to the Gare de I'Est a third evening. 

June 30 
I am up in Mrs. Munroe's office answering ques- 
tions (of which there are almost none) while she is 
making the rounds of the auxiliaries — she has about 
ninety, I believe, and she sees them every day. Then 
I shall go down to my regular work, and this after- 
noon I am to see an operation for the first time. I 
have found one little additional job I can do in three 
of my wards — attend to sending the diagnoses each 
week on little cards to the families, with a message 
from each man. Apparently the men never have any- 
thing to say and don't want to write, but it is a French 
Government rule that they shall. I think it will be 
fun, for I can invent things for them to say, and it is 
certainly more in line with my work than the head 
nurse's. 

We are going fast and furious on picture puzzles. I 
have bought a number, for they have not the patience 
to undertake the long ones which are chiefly what the 
Ambulance has. For about a week I have given them 
a new one every day, but I can't keep that up forever. 
I had the brilliant idea last night that perhaps some 
of them could draw crayon pictures on the other side, 
so we should have a double set. I know one of the men 
can draw. 

Some of the men really have the sweetest faces 
that ever were, and goodness, they are young! And 



30 ON DUTY AND OFF | 

look even younger. But I wish I could understand 
French better. I do so wonder how our own soldiers 
will compare with the French as patients — wonder- 
ful (most of them) about the pain, always ready to 
smile and to appreciate anything you do. I dare say 
ours will be just as nice — only I feel as if they would 
be more exacting. I met an American boy the other 
day at the Gare de I'Est and he accompanied us to the 
Gare du Nord to the ''American party." He told us, 
and I guess every one else he met, all about himself. 
He was quite attractive, with a thin, very keen face 
and good sense of humor and friendly to the last de- 
gree. He had been in the American Army six years, 
though he looked about twenty, and in the Foreign 
Legion two years, had then gone to pieces mentally, 
and at his own request had been sent to a hospital. 
He had been there four or five months and was now 
on his way to Lyons for a month and then expected to 
be transferred to the American camp as instructor. 

The "American party" was awfully nice and I 
should think would do a really good job. There were , 

about three hundred men there, I should say, who i 

were going back to the front the next morning. The 
first comers sat round long tables with nice clean 
tablecloths and roses down- the centre. They had 
bread and pinard and cherries — the last passed off 
and on all evening. The later comers sat round on the 
beds, of which there were about fifty or seventy-five 
I should say; otherwise the men sleep all over the 
floor of the station or street or anywhere. When 
every one had had something to drink (piano going all 



FRENCH WOUNDED 31 

the time), a man got up and gave them a welcome 
and introduced a string of singers who really per- 
formed very well and got every one to laughing and 
singing. That kept on for an hour, I should say, and 
they distributed then those little "comfort bags" that 
the French Wounded (and I dare say other people) 
send over. They contain perhaps a razor, pair of 
socks, soap, comb, writing-paper, piece of chocolate, 
and picture post-cards. One man did n't get any razor 
and wanted awfully to know if he could not have one 
separate. They really are crazy about the bags. Then 
each man had an American flag. I left just after an 
impassioned speech by some one about the sacrifices 
the soldiers were making, and that each man should 
go off feeling that we really cared enormously about 
him. It was quite stirring. Then every one sang the 
** Marseillaise" — the only time I have heard it here 
and quite enough to last me for some time. 

July I 
Life here is really just as difficult — there are just 
as many things to decide — as at home. I sort of felt 
that one would get right down to first principles and 
that the things one did would be so urgent that there 
would be practically no choice in the matter. But not 
at all. In the Ambulance, for example, there is at 
present a very quiet time, with very few admissions, 
so that my work — the things I absolutely have to do 
— can be put through in anywhere from half an hour 
to an hour and a half a day ; and then I have to choose 
and decide what to do the rest of the time. What I do. 



32 ON DUTY AND OFF 

the bulk of the rest of the time, is to try to enliven 
the men and give them a good time; and of course I 
think that is very worth while, poor lads — some of 
them have been in the hospital two years — though 
as a matter of fact I think those cases are pretty well 
settled down to a satisfactory existence, and the ones 
who are most bored are those who have been there a 
month or two. At present we are going very heavily 
on picture puzzles, and the men are crazy about them 
and leap from their beds if I come in with a new one. 
I have not yet tried them on the officers — except on 
one who said he had n't nearly enough patience, and 
then apologized profusely for not being more appre- 
ciative; but I guess I had better try them out to- 
morrow. But, of course, the officers read a great deal 
and go out on permission more: the men hoot with 
derision if you ask them if they would like something 
to read. The officers are usually very entertaining, 
but naturally are more self-sufficient and have more 
friends coming to see them. 

It is perfectly thrilling to think that we actually 
have troops over here ! The longer I am here the more 
I wish we could put millions of men into the field at 
once — and that we had done so before. There are to 
be all kinds of festivities here on the Fourth — but 
you will see all that in the papers, of course. I am 
going to the big market at half-past six in the morn- 
ing to buy poppies, daisies, and bachelor's buttons, 
for little bouquets for all my men. There is to be a 
grand dejeuner at the Ambulance, all the food with 
military names — and afterwards a service in the 



FRENCH WOUNDED 33 

chapel, with singing and speeches. I can't hear the 
Ambulance things and the town ones, too, I am 
afraid, but I guess I will stick by the ship. 

I will now begin and keep a real diary for at least a 
week and see how it comes out. 

Sunday, July i 
Breakfast at eight (as usual). Went up the street 
to send Cynthia a telegram saying I would be chez- 
elle at twelve-thirty. (Which dates back to one day 
earlier in the week when I went into the French 
Wounded to see it, under the guidance of Louisa H., 
and suddenly Cynthia appeared, dressed almost in 
regular ambulance uniform, only with a skirt, and it 
seems she is there, driving a camion every day and all 
day for them. She was taking Louisa over to deliver 
some great sacks of sheets, etc., at a little hospital 
managed by Sisters, under the French Red Cross, 
way across Paris somewhere. So I made her take me, 
too — somewhat against rules. That was good fun, 
for the Sisters were awfully nice and cordial and 
simple-hearted, and we went in and handed round 
cigarettes — Cynthia's — to the bless6s, who were 
at lunch. There was only one in bed and they all have 
to work all morning in the hospital vegetable gar- 
den.) Then I read and wrote letters till eleven or so, 
packed up my things for the Gare and went in to 
Cynthia's. Of course the telegram had n't reached 
her and she was out. I enjoyed a solitary meal at 
Henriette's, a restaurant close by — the first meal I 
have had alone (with a book) in years and years. The 



34 ON DUTY AND OFF 

room has frescoed walls of the Queen of Hearts and 
the Tarts and the Knave, in soft, fady colors, life- 
size, all round, done by an English art student who 
could n't pay her bills in the ordinary way. Want to 
know what I had? I tell you food gets to be an event 
these days! Omelet, peas, — both piping hot, — to- 
mato salad, wild strawberries with a little brown jug 
of that marvellous thick, slightly sour cream, and 
sugar. Does n't that sound good? (I forgot this was a 
diary, and one does n't ask questions in a diary, does 
one?) Back to Cynthia's room — still out. I left my 
dress-suit case there the first time, of course. Went a 
hundred miles over to Notre Dame and stayed for an 
hour's worth of service there — perfectly inexplica- 
ble, but lovely, music: choir-boys, led by a master 
with a long stick from the middle of the chancel, and 
two organs, one at the front and the other at the back. 
I sat where I could see the beautiful dark-blue and 
green rose window in the transept, and enjoyed my- 
self. Went back to Cynthia's — she had not come in. 
Went up to her room and lay down for an hour, had a 
cup of tea and some bread and butter, and went over 
to the Gare de I'Est, getting there and dressed at 
quarter of six. Went to my appointed table, turned 
round, and came face to face with Cynthia, who had 
been there since one o'clock. Very busy evening, all 
the tables full all the time. The floor is so slippery 
from spilled soup and beer that it is something of a 
problem not to fall — especially when you are carry- 
ing a waiter of ordinary good size on which are piled 
twelve large plates of meat and vegetables with lots 



FRENCH WOUNDED 35 

of gravy on them. I guess Sunday is a hard day, or 
people stay longer, or something, for their tempers 
are certainly not as good as they are on Tuesdays. I 
had two Canadian boys among other poilus, and if I 
had given them half a chance they would have in- 
vited me to the theatre; but I did n't feel sure of the 
etiquette of going out in the evening with two per- 
fectly uneducated boys who called me "Sister." How- 
ever, I understand that men en permission should 
have anything they want, so perhaps I will go if they 
ask me again Tuesday — though I doubt it ; I don't 
think I am made that way, and it is no use my pre- 
tending I am. A Belgian, who tried to talk English to 
me, but did n't know it apart from German, told me 
that I was very pretty — so you see I have come to 
the one appreciative spot in the world. Got home 
about nine and had supper. 

Monday y July 2 
Got rather late to breakfast, owing to a peculiarity 
of my watch. Reached Ambulance at half-past nine 
and read my letters from home. Did about half an 
hour's work on the histories and spent the rest of the 
time till twelve in talking with the men, looking 
through the library for more picture puzzles without 
too many pieces missing. Lunch. Gave English lesson 
in 68 and then went in to see a man in 69 who had 
been in his weekly tub when I was there before. He is 
the farmer from the borders of Spain and France, of 
whom I have told you before ; and he really is a per- 
fect duck, and courageous to the last degree, and full 



36 ON DUTY AND OFF 

of humor. It was for him that I first started them on 
picture puzzles, and he has done them all the time 
since. In the next bed to his is a very slight, small lad, 
who looks white and thoroughly unhappy and discon- 
tented all the time. He complains incessantly of his 
arm, which is in such contrast to the other men that 
the nurses have got to feel that he is a perfect cry- 
baby and that the only thing to do is to leave him 
alone. I tried to make him do puzzles, but he said he 
had n't the patience; so he just lies there concentrat- 
ing on his arm, and groaning from time to time. Well, 
to-day I decided to tackle him — and tackle him till 
I got him. So I asked him if there was nothing he 
liked to do — whether he liked to read ; no ; whether 
he would like me to read to him ; no ; and then one of 
the other men said he would like to learn English, 
and he said, yes, that was so, he would. So I started 
him off — though he is very slow to catch on — and 
another man joined him, which ought to make it more 
entertaining for him, and I think that for a minute or 
two at a time he forgot his arm ; but certainly not for 
long. I have left him quite a list of words to learn for 
to-morrow and he promised he would. Then I went at 
him as if he were a Radcliffe girl and asked him what 
his trade had been before the war; coiffeur, so that 
did n't help much. What did he do in his off time? He 
walked — so helpful. Was he musical? No? Then I 
would not sing to him — roars of laughter from every 
one else. I really begin to fancy myself as a wft, these 
men laugh so easily. Was he artistic? Certainly not! 
Was there anything in the world he enjoyed doing? 



FRENCH WOUNDED 37 

Yes, there was — he loved to play cards. In three 
minutes he had a pack of cards, and settled down for 
his first afternoon of real comfort. And, of course, he 
might have had them days ago if I had had the sense 
to find it out or he had had the sense to ask. Well, we 
may get him on to picture puzzles yet; by hook or 
by crook I am determined to wear the frown off his 
childish face. He is twenty- two, but looks seventeen. 
Left the hospital at three-fifteen, after having done 
a bit more work on the histories; got the doctor to 
sign up one man's papers, so he can be evacuated, 
give me notes on two operations and two diagnoses; 
came home and dressed for a trip to Pantruche. Got a 
nice loaf of cake for Bronson, who has sent me a check 
to send him cake with once a week; got a price on a 
stop-watch for one of his ofificers; bought a pack of 
cards so that Frowner can have one always at hand, 
two picture puzzles, a card table so that they can 
keep the big picture puzzles going more than one day, 
a sheet of Bristol board to experiment with making 
cardboard picture puzzles — they are so awfully ex- 
pensive in wood, and the head nurse does n't want 
them to make wooden ones at the Ambulance because 
the wards are supposed to look just like a New York 
hospital for really sick people — and paste for the 
same. What the Ambulance really needs is a big play 
room, where the men could have a piano and work- 
benches, etc., and spend the rainy days, and a good- 
sized sitting-room for the officers. A ward is an aw- 
fully poor place for a man who feels perfectly well 
and is up and dressed — for the whole day and for 



38 ON DUTY AND OFF 

days and days in succession. Of course, they can go 
out, but there's nothing to do in the yard. I wonder 
why we should n't have ring-toss, or something Hke 
that, outdoors? 

Tuesday 
I am not making much headway with Le Petit — 
who frowns. I gave him his cards and he seemed 
pleased for the moment, but in spite of his great de- 
sire to learn English he finds it impossible to learn 
three words. I really think I spent half an hour trying 
to make him remember three, and he could n't. It 
turns out that he can't read much — at least he says 
he can't. I guess English will have to be given up. 
Found one of the nurses wanted to get tickets for 
some of the men to go to the ceremony at Lafayette's 
Tomb, the Fourth. Went in for her to Brentano's, 
but found all the tickets had been given out. Thence 
to the American Chamber of Commerce, and from 
there was referred to their honorary secretary. He 
was out. Tried to buy a coat d'infirmiere. Back to 
Ambulance, and home to dress for Gare de I'Est. 
Into Paris again ; found the honorable secretary this 
time, and he said he would probably pass me and a 
few bless6s in for the ceremony, as he was to be at the 
gate all the time. Gare de I'Est from half-past five to 
quarter of eight — a back-breaking process when you 
serve three tables, not at all when you serve two. 
What the people do who are there all afternoon and 
evening and serve endless tables, I can't imagine: I 
should think they would die. The French have such 



FRENCH WOUNDED 39 

odd ideas of suitable chaussure! There was a strap- 
ping girl there who had her blue infirmiere's costume 
on, white apron, dark-brown stockings, and cloth- 
of-silver dancing-slippers with the highest possible 
heels. Came out to Neuilly and took a fifteen-min- 
ute walk in search of blue-and- white ribbon, which I 
found. Home, and supper at quarter past nine. Spent 
till quarter of twelve cutting and arranging little rib- 
bon things, with stars and stripes, for my Fourth of 
July bouquets — you may have heard me mention 
them before ! 

Fourth of July {to-day) 
No more time and this must be posted to-night. 
Will simply say that I rose at quarter past four, made 
my own breakfast and took the first Metro into Paris 
to buy my flowers at the big market. Am now (quar- 
ter of six in the afternoon) about to dress and go in 
town to dine with George, and very likely Bobby. 

... As I said, got up very early and set my water 
a-boiling in M. J.'s little affair, while I dressed, and 
then had delicious breakfast of Washington coffee 
(which is so superior to anything I have had here that 
I wish it were not impolite to use it always) and 
bread and honey. Breakfast finished, I left the house 
only two minutes after schedule time, and reached 
the Metro in plenty of time for the first car — with 
all the other marketers. The market was simply de- 
lightful and I am going again on a sunny day with 
my kodak. There were no buyers there any earlier 
than I, and not many, anyway — just the venders 



40 ON DUTY AND OFF 

with their baskets and carts piled high with vege- 
tables. One man had a hay-cart full of carrots and 
peered out from among them — great masses of that 
gorgeous orange color encircled in brilliant, feathery 
green on all sides of him. Radishes made another 
wonderful mass of color — and beans, and tomatoes; 
everything in great quantities looking so luxuriant. I 
walked through the whole market before coming to 
the flowers, and then came on them suddenly — a 
whole passage lined on both sides with them, sheets 
of solid color — bachelor's buttons, daisies, roses 
(thousands), golden- rod, dark-purple pansies, white 
chrysanthemums, little garden pinks, larkspur, lilies, 
marigolds. Really a most wonderful sight ; I don't see 
why people don't paint it all the time, but I did n't 
see any artists there. The sun was n't out, so the col- 
ors looked brighter than ever. I chose five fat bunches 
of bachelor's buttons, six bunches of the little pinks, 
so as to be able to take only the red ones, and two 
huge bunches of white button chrysanthemums — 
they made a dress-suit case full ; then I could n't re- 
sist getting a great bunch of golden-rod and ferns, for 
the American nurses on my corridor, and some pan- 
sies for the head nurse of the corridor. So I came 
home laden, and started in at once to make up my 
bouquets — one red carnation in front, then a little 
row of whites and a row of blues, tied with red, white, 
and blue ribbon. I started that at quarter of seven 
and worked just as fast as I possibly could till half- 
past eight, having every one else in the household 
working, too, the last fifteen minutes, and rushed 



FRENCH WOUNDED 41 

over to the Ambulance. The Frenchies were highly 
delighted with their bouquets. There were some left 
over which the cleaning- women begged. Then I col- 
lected my six blesses, with great difficulty and wait- 
ing round, as some of them had been up and ready 
since crack of dawn and others were n't dressed, — 
and dressing is such a long process if you have only 
one hand, — and we thought we were off, rather late 
but probably in time. Not at all ; when we got to the 
front door we found the permissions were n't ready, 
though every one knew the night before that the men 
were all given leave. Finally we were off — but, my 
goodness, they did walk slowly! It is only fair to say 
that Grandpere (who is thirty-three), the chief re- 
tarder, had n't been out before and was feeling a bit 
wobbly; but still, I could have walked down and back 
before they got there. And then, for the first time 
since I have got here, there was a block of fifteen 
minutes in the Metro. However, we finally got there, 
I murmured the name of the honorary secretary 
("there" being Lafayette's tomb — or rather the con- 
vent yard which contained the cemetery which con- 
tained the tomb), each man handed out one of my 
visiting cards as a ticket — my own idea and it 
worked — and after half an hour's more wait we got 
in and got places on various neighboring tombs. But 
alas, the soldiers that we wanted so much to see 
did n't come inside, and all there was was speeches 
made in English by men whom we could n't see or 
hear. So after a while we went out and found the 
American soldiers (only one battalion of them in- 



42 ON DUTY AND OFF 

stead of the whole contingent) lined up on both sides 
of a long, grassy, leafy lane, and had some talk with 
them as to the French vs. American guns, rifles, car- 
tridge belts, packs, etc. They looked most picturesque 
and I thought quite imposing — certainly big and 
strong — so much bigger than Frenchmen. Then 
they marched away, but irregularly and without a 
band, and our grand spectacle for which we had made 
such an effort was over; it really was rather disap- 
pointing. Then we went to one of those little corner 
caf6s and had lunch — not a very good lunch — 
which I paid for and which seemed to make up to the 
boys for the morning's flatness; at least, reliable wit- 
nesses told me that the men had thoroughly enjoyed 
the party, and I like to believe them. After lunch we 
did something which quite made up for the rest to me 
' — we went and had our pictures taken on a post- 
card ; I do hope they will be good. 

When I got back to the Ambulance I found a note 
from George asking me to dine with him, and I natu- 
rally accepted the invitation. We went to the Cuckoo 
on Montmartre. There is the most lovely view from 
Montmartre : the whole of Paris is at your feet, soft 
and lovely. Delicious dinner, and we walked part way 
home — and saw an eclipse of the moon which neither 
of us could explain. End of the Fourth. 

July 5 
Rien k signaler. 



FRENCH WOUNDED 43 

July 6 
Mail-day and the mail late. Worked quite hard, 
for there were about five evacuations and I had the 
little cards which are sent out to the families each 
week, via the Ministere de la Guerre, to write for 
about thirty men, and that takes quite a while — 
name, rank, and diagnosis of each; address of mem- 
ber of the family, and some kind of message. One 
man I found could n't even write his own name; and 
then, of course, a good many of them had bad arms 
and could n't write. I started, in English, with a com- 
mandant, who will be good fun to teach, for, of 
course, he is a man of considerable intellect and train- 
ing — you have to be, to pass the French officers' 
exams. I started reading "My Friend Prospero" to 
him — translating it into French, with his help. I 
cannot make him read "The bird has a nest and I 
have a home," as I do the poor poilu, who, by the 
way, is really working very hard over his English and 
demanded a notebook, in which he writes out the ex- 
ercises. To the poilu, also, I read and translate — usu- 
ally something out of the newspaper. 

Mother is right — or rather I agree with her that it 
would be nice to have some rigor in the job, but tant 
pis, there is none. Neither is there any chance to ad- 
minister any affairs ; the m6decin chef, whom I never 
see, says how he wants the thing done, and that is the 
end of it. The corridor is so separate from the rest of 
the Ambulance that the organization as a whole I 
know nothing of. However, you never can tell what 
will happen when we are militarized, though I be- 



44 ON DUTY AND OFF 

lieve everything is to go on as before. This is sup- 
posed to happen at once, but has been supposed to 
for some days and has n't yet. 

Saturday J July 7 
Went in town the first thing and got various 
needed things, including an Enghsh grammar for the 
commandant and a picture book for making card- 
board picture puzzles. Came out and evacuated one 
man before lunch. I have about resigned myself to 
being a little Sunshine, for it seems as if I 'd got to do 
that or go in for nursing pure and simple, which ap- 
peals to me less all the time. Of course, if they ask me 
to do that I will, but I don't think they will. I love 
doing the other, as far as that goes — the weeks slip 
by like nothing at all — except when I look back and 
then I can't believe there can be so much of any- 
thing. 

Tuesday J July 10 
Hospital from nine to four. Followed the dressing- 
cart the first hour or so, did some work (some of it 
quite hard), gave my two English lessons, made 
folded paper things, etc. I am quite pleased with Le 
Petit (who frowned). It has^n't had much to do with 
me — is chiefly due to the fact that his arm is out of 
the extension, which pulled it all the time — but he is 
really cheering up. He has smiled quite often, and I 
have n't happened to hear him complain at all. This 
afternoon when I went in he was playing cards (for 
money), with the cards I gave him, with three com- 



FRENCH WOUNDED 45 

panions sitting on his bed, and smoking — really 
having quite a time. He won, and made a grand total 
of two sous, for which he says he can get four ciga- 
rettes — they must be corkers. It was good to see him 
care about anything. And yesterday he was throwing 
water at a friend ; I wanted to make them little Japa- 
nese fly boxes to throw the water in, so as to have it 
really done well, but the nurse did n*t take to the idea. 
Went in to the Gare de I'Est and served dinner to 
forty-six gentlemen, if I am not mistaken — my rec- 
ord. Acquired another fiUeul, who somehow does n't 
attract me entirely — he was too polite and had a 
queer smile, which may have been due to his having 
but one eye and no artificial one in the other's place. 
Anyhow, he is from Lyons, and was married, I don't 
know how long since, and when he went home en per- 
mission three months ago he found that his wife had 
sold his place and his business and gone off, with the 
money, with an American. He begged me to be his 
marraine and I could n't very well tell him I did n't 
think I would because I did n't like his looks — so I 
am; I dare say he's all right, for a French girl who 
talked with him seemed to think he was. 

July 16 
I take a few minutes while I am waiting to report 
to Mrs. Munroe's secretary to tell you I am still alive 
and well. I go to the Henris' to-day and want to go 
home at once and pack — so, of course, this is the one 
morning of her life when the secretary is late. I was 
up in Mrs. Munroe's office Saturday afternoon and 



46 ON DUTY AND OFF 

all day Sunday, while she and her secretary were off. 
I had to see all the auxiliaries and find out if they 
were going to stay to lunch and then I did some filing 
and typing, found two girls to pour tea, etc., and 
evacuated a couple of my own men. Then at five I left 
and went to the Gare de I'Est, where the place was 
crowded full and you had to wait hours in line for 
everything. Every one was cross, including the men, 
who did n't like having to wait for their food. Mon- 
day, had to go to the Ambulance at eight and wait 
to deliver a message. Home and packed (I have 
enough things to set up housekeeping with) , got my 
things over to Madame Henri's, tore over to the Am- 
bulance and worked till half-past five; over to the 
American Hospital where Penelope is sick with 
quinsy throat (the worst of it being now over) and 
back to the Henris' just in time for a half -past seven 
dinner. Tuesday left the house early and got back at 
quarter of nine, having really worked all the time ex- 
cept about half an hour for lunch and the time spent in 
getting in to the Gare de I'Est. Good evening there, 
however, very satisfactory. To-day — Wednesday — 
left again early and am just back. Am flying to the 
Lauths' for a farewell dinner. 



CHAPTER II 

AN AMERICAN HOSPITAL FOR FRENCH SOLDIERS 

{continued) 

July 1 8 
I HOPE the last letter you got was a good long one, for 
this is hardly a letter at all. I have been very busy, in- 
deed, and perfectly unexpectedly so, so that I did n't 
start to write this letter earlier in the week. It is be- 
cause of the transfer of the Ambulance to the Ameri- 
can Red Cross ; there are lists to be made out of every 
kind of thing and it all takes time. I have just been 
checking up, running errands, making the rounds to 
find out which of the fifty or more auxiliaires are 
lunching at the Ambulance, and such-like things. It 
is not especially exciting in one way, but is very neces- 
sary and I do love to be really very busy. There is a 
possible plan in mind which will give me different 
work if it goes through, and then I have no doubt I 
shall be perverse enough to regret my leisurely days 
of playing with the lads and talking a blue streak all 
day and going off whenever I liked. Really, though, I 
shall like it much better, for it will mean that I can 
work up a good job and one where I could not be re- 
placed at a moment's notice as I certainly could in 
the history work. It will mean the regular auxiliaire 
hours of eight to six, and, of course, I shall have to 
give up the Gare de I'Est. On Sunday next we are to 
have a grand ceremony of transfer. The whole place 



48 ON DUTY AND OFF 

has been In a perfect ferment of guessing what is to 
happen next and commenting on what has already 
happened. 

It is now quarter of eleven and I suppose I am 
keeping every one awake by my machine a 6crire, so 
I will stop. I have been taking a farewell supper with 
the Lauths. I don't suppose I could possibly have 
found a more thoroughly congenial and homelike 
family; I really feel absolutely at home there and am 
as fond as possible of them all. They and Helena F. 
(who goes home, alas, in two weeks) have made all 
the difference in these first few weeks. The Henris are 
very nice, indeed ; I have hardly had time yet to get 
acquainted. The two children will be a great pleasure. 
They are all as friendly as possible. No tub; I shall 
have to buy one. 

July 21 
It is the most beautiful evening imaginable. I am 
sitting at my table, which is bang up against the 
French window, and I look out over a very pleasant 
collection of back yards — the walls heavily hung 
with English ivy and Virginia creeper — with flower- 
ing bushes and horse-chestnut trees, and the backs of 
houses quite a distance off. There are no back alleys 
and no clothes drying ever — how the thing is worked 
I don't know. The sky is hazy blue — horizon blue in 
fact — and there are wonderful piles of clouds, al- 
most as blue as the sky at the base and in the folds, 
and creamy white where the sun strikes them. Every 
fifteen minutes the chimes ring, and the only other 



FRENCH WOUNDED 49 

sound is the indescribable and penetrating whirr- 
burr-hum of an aeroplane. I don't think I ever hap- 
pened to mention, did I, that they fly overhead 
constantly — every twenty minutes or so, I should 
almost say, the beautiful things. (There's the church 
chiming, now.) Each cream-colored cloud is outlined 
in blue. It really is heavenly and we shall probably 
have a beautiful sunset. There was a marvellous one 
the other evening which I watched with Louisa H. 
from her window — little pink clouds everywhere and 
one great, dark, chocolate-colored one flecked with 
bright gold. The aeroplanes sound more than any- 
thing else like Father's centrifugal blood thing — 
only fluctuating, and with a harder, more metallic 
sound when the sound strikes a cloud. The third since 
I started to write is going over, but that's rather a 
big allowance; they are probably going home to sup- 
per. The other day during the 14 juillet procession I 
counted fifteen in sight at once. 

I did n't get through work till late to-day, having 
started early and taken only about half an hour for 
lunch. All this extra stuff is over to-day, however, 
and no one knows what will happen after the transfer 
to-morrow. This afternoon the personnel of the Am- 
bulance presented the chief surgeon, who is leaving, 
with a huge loving-cup — a quaint present, but 
given with most intense feeling and received in the 
same way. Almost every one cried. The nurses feel as 
if they were losing their best friend, and the patients 
do, too, I think — ought to, anyway, for he is per- 
fectly angelic to them and is always sending for the 



50 ON DUTY AND OFF 

wives of the very sick ones out of his own pocket- 
book and doing all kinds of nice things. (Fourth aero- 
plane.) I send you a kodak of him and Dr. Gano, 
which you will please guard soigneusement. 

I send you also the picture postal of me and my six 
blesses which we had taken on the Fourth. Every one 
of these men is a perfect peach and as sweet as the 
lilacs in June. If I were choosing the best, I think I 'd 
say the two Zou-Zous : they are angels, both of them. 
Faucheron, on my other side, really has many scars 
round the jaw, and wears an appareil to hold the jaw 
in place. He works round the wards almost as hard as 
an orderly — self-appointed errand boy for the head 
nurse. Mandin, left front, is just as nice as can be, 
•though he has n't quite the heavenly character of the 
Zou-Zous. In the middle is Grandpere, who is thirty- 
three and seems like a worn-out old man compared to 
the rest of the babes. He is rather pathetic, for he has 
n't the youth and gay spirits of most of them. How- 
ever, he has his own joys — including a very affec- 
tionate and attractive young wife, with red cheeks 
and shining brown eyes, and two children who he says 
are very intelligent and whose pictures are very at- 
tractive. Boucher, the last, is like a big Newfound- 
land dog — slow and not strikingly intellectual (can't 
write his own name), but absolutely devoted to 
the helpless men in his ward, carrying them round, 
doing their errands, dressing them, etc. He is not 
specially attractive, for he looks so heavy, but one 
gets very fond of him. If Michel (the farmer lad) and 
Le Petit Moineau (who no longer frowns, but is the 



FRENCH WOUNDED 51 

life of the ward) were in the picture, it would contain 
all my specialties. When Le Petit and Michel are 
evacuated I shall weep buckets. 

A.R.C. Military Hospital i 
Neuilly-sur-Seine 

July 24 

Sunday last was a magnificent day. I breakfasted 
de luxe, making my own coffee and spreading my 
bread with jam I was reckless enough to buy, went to 
the hospital, and found six letters from the U.S. 
Figurez-vous quel jour! 

We had an inspection visit from our military head 
yesterday. He looked us over and asked questions 
about us in our presence just as if we were so many 
horses, and it was screamingly funny. However, this 
morning I was introduced again in Mrs. Munroe's 
office and he smiled broadly and shook hands and 
said, oh, he'd met Miss Putnam. Yesterday you 
would n't have thought he could possibly smile, let 
alone notice the physiognomy of an auxiliaire. I am 
rather out of conceit with many of those about me at 
present, for almost every one regrets that we are no 
longer the American Ambulance, and I feel borne on 
the wings of the wind — or something equally up- 
lifting and invigorating — at the thought that we 
are under the American Government and part of the 
whole machine. I love it: I was ready to work hard 
before, but now I feel ready to work my head off. 
(Another plane overhead.) 



52 ON DUTY AND OFF 

July 25 
To-day has been a long one and I want to get to 
bed, so I will hastily close you up and write a line to 
Father, perhaps. The change in head doctor has 
brought a change in the method of keeping histories 
which is rather ennuyant. I now don't have to put 
them into French at all, which was rather fun, and I 
do have to put down a lot of other details which 
are n*t so amusing — such as when the man had his 
last bath and last put on clean clothes, and what was 
the state of the ground on which he fell. A whole lot 
of histories were brought back to me for correction, 
as I had n't put anything after "physical examina- 
tion" — we never have — and that was laborious 
and rather boring too. I gave two English lessons, 
and that with the histories took the whole day. There 
were fifty- three admissions last night — not for my 
corridor, but in the whole hospital. I did one thing 
which came out rather well: I wrote out from my 
own observations the statement of an operation yes- 
terday and the doctor said it was all right and left it 
as it was. Of course, it was the simplest thing, but I 
shall try it again the next time I can get to an opera- 
tion. This one was: "Followed sinus from wound on 
anterior face of right thigh downward for about three 
inches, making small incision at lower end. Removed 
pieces of decaying bone. Followed sinus from upper 
wound, interior face, to lower, removing pieces of 
bone from lower extremity of upper fragment of fe- 
mur. Drains Carrel-Dakin." 
The Muse doesn't seem to be with me to-night; 



FRENCH WOUNDED 53 

is n't that a shame when the letters have to go to- 
morrow morning! You know I can send my letters 
without a stamp; is n't that swagger? Only I believe 
they have to go by England and that retards them 
more or less, so I don't do it. 

The Henris' is an excellent place to live. I have 
breakfast at my open window in my room every day, 
which I love. Every member of the family breakfasts 
at a different hour, beginning with Madame Henri 
at six and continuing through the grandchildren at 
eight. I read while I eat and then walk over to the 
hospital through very pleasant streets with great 
trees and gardens (walled) on both sides, and am 
thoroughly leisurely. I am obliged to confess that I 
like having breakfast alone. The food is very good; 
vegetables deliciously cooked and always fruit for 
dessert. Then I drink pinard, which I also must say I 
like ; I am afraid I was born to be a taster. 

' July 26 
This afternoon there was a decoration — or rather 
three — in one of the wards. This was the first deco- 
ration I had seen and it was certainly very stirring. 
Two Zouaves got the Legion of Honor, and a third 
man got the Croix de Guerre with palms. The man 
who gave the medals was himself a Zouave, in the 
same regiment with one if not both the others. The 
first medal was for one Captain Frot, who got him- 
self out of his chair with great difficulty and stood on 
two crutches while the man read out in a loud tone 
(there were only a dozen or so officers in the room, 



54 ON DUTY AND OFF 

with half a dozen friends and a dozen nurses, etc.) 
the name and regiment of the captain, the fact that 
he was now to receive the Legion of Honor after five 
previous citations, and the present citation; then he 
struck him on each shoulder with his sword, pinned 
the medal on, and kissed him on either cheek. The 
other Legion of Honor man was in bed, but in his 
regimentals and red Zouave cap all the same ; he had 
received three previous citations. The third man was 
considerably older, also a captain, and this was his 
first citation. The formal part being over, the man 
threw all caution to the winds and launched forth 
into the most delightful account of Captain Frot, 
who had entered his regiment in the very beginning, 
when he was too young to have a mustache, and who 
was like a son to him, — with a little bow and asking 
permission to speak so from his real father who was 
present, — and said how he had watched his progress 
and how there never was any one like him for courage 
and self-forgetfulness and power over the men of his 
company; said that he really had created the com- 
pany and was the heart and soul of it ; that men who 
came back after being wounded always wanted to get 
back into his company; and so on at considerable 
length. It was quite outside the ordinary proceed- 
ings, I think, and was thrilling — the man spoke with 
so much feeling. It was very interesting, too, to have 
him speak of his authority over his men, for he is so 
gentle and has such a sweet face that you would not 
have picked out authority as being a characteristic. 
Then the nJan spoke of each of the others, saying 



FRENCH WOUNDED 55 

that the captain who got his Croix de Guerre had 
gotten it for seeking out opportunities for intelligent 
self-sacrifice, and that it meant as much for a man of 
his age to get his first medal as for the younger ones 
to get their higher ones — or something like that. 
The whole thing was so very genuine, and not a bit 
purely formal and conventional. Then, of course, we 
had something light-colored and fizzy out of a bottle 
— or rather many bottles — and every one touched 
glasses and drank to bonne sant6. The conferring of 
the medals was not unlike the conferring of Ph.D.'s, 
but that made it all the more affecting — to think at 
what kind of university they had won their honors. 

July 27 
Worked, the earlier part of the morning, in Mrs. 
Munroe's office and was awarded the next day as a 
holiday. Found I was n't needed in the afternoon, 
and after consulting various nurses who had been 
there decided to go to Fontainebleau for Friday 
night and all day Saturday — was n't that extraor- 
dinarily reckless? Oh, I had such a good time! I wired 
to Bob to dine with me on my arrival, but of course 
he did n't get the message till the next morning, 
though I sent it by twelve noon ; so I dined alone, and 
then strolled down some darling little lanes, peering 
shamelessly through the little gates into people's 
gardens — such fascinating gardens and little cot- 
tages with moss-grown stone roofs. Lovely, clear 
evening, with the moon in the first quarter. Went to 
bed early. Breakfasted next morning in a little court- 



56 ON DUTY AND OFF 

yard, and arranged to have a carriage to faire a 
promenade in the For^t — very de luxe, I know, but 
it proved well worth it, and I never could have found 
any of the loveliest places if I had gone unguided on 
foot. I packed up my picnic things (in the invaluable 
gold bag, which brought down all my picnic things 
as well as night things) and ** Shirley," and set forth 
in my victoria at nine-fifteen, driven by a slightly 
garrulous but very nice reform^ — and there's a 
word I don't believe even my learned father knows: 
it means a soldier who has been so badly wounded 
that after he is well he can't go back into the army; 
this particular reform^ had a resected knee, and in 
consequence a jambe rigide. It was a day that be- 
came very hot, indeed, but in the Forest it was abso- 
lutely perfect. The Forest extends for miles and miles 
and is the most beautiful woods I have almost ever 
seen — slightly cleaned up as to underbrush, per- 
haps, but so well done that it seems perfectly wild 
and natural; great huge beeches, some birch, holly, 
and other green-leaf things. It is very much like the 
Canaumet woods on a giant scale. We drove to vari- 
ous lookouts, where you saw a great valley, like a 
canon, below, and beyond and on all sides nothing 
but forest, forest, forest. I did n't suppose there was 
so much wild territory in all France — it was almost 
like being on Haystack and looking off. The great 
rocky ledges were worn smooth, with smooth hollows 
and basins in them, and the valley looked just as if it 
had been a river-bed once; but my reform6 assured 
me it never had been. The light was marvellous — 



FRENCH WOUNDED 57 

that extraordinary golden green — and the place 
smelled so sweet! Heather just coming out, round the 
ledges, and clumps of harebell in the crevices. And si- 
lence. In an hour and three quarters we only met one 
other person. I arranged to be left about a half- 
hour's walk into the woods, and I walked some dis- 
tance off the path and chose the trunk of a huge 
hemlock, or something of that ilk, to lean against. 
The ground smelled hot and delicious, and there 
were real stumps with real toadstools growing on 
them. I don't know when I have enjoyed anything 
more. I had my little solid alcohol saucepan, and 
made my usual delicious coffee with plenty of con- 
densed milk, which is much better than the milk you 
get regularly here, and had bread with cherry jam. 
I lay on my back and basked, and I read "Shirley,'* 
and spent a thoroughly satisfactory two hours. The 
forest is so endless that one could easily get lost there 
if one was the right person — and last night would 
have been a perfect one to spend outdoors — but 
alas, alas, I am far too prudent to get lost. Well, so 
then I walked back into the town and after more or 
less endless, and scorching hot, alleys and yards, I 
found Bobby at the Ecole d'Artillerie. We strolled 
down to where you could get a lovely view of the 
Chateau, across two formal lakes and a moat, flanked 
on each side by marvellous great spruces, and had a 
little converse. Then visited the Chateau, which was 
just like every other chateau except that it had a 
large library of beautifully bound old volumes which, 
up to the time of the war, was open to any one of 



58 ON DUTY AND OFF 

good repute in Fontainebleau — open once a month, 
when you could take out four or five volumes and re- 
turn them the following month. That seemed so ex- 
traordinarily intelligent, Christian, and up-to-date, 
that it marks out the Chateau from others. I don't 
think I shall go through any more of them. Went back 
to my hotel and got packed, and came back to the 
town for dinner with Bobby and he brought me back 
to Neuilly, reaching there about half -past eleven. 
People are so funny; I asked Madame to-day whether 
that would not have been rather late to come home 
alone — there is a twenty minutes' walk down quite 
empty and rather dark streets — and she said, oh, 
no, there was nothing to fear; and yet she thinks it 
entirely improper to go round the corner in the eve- 
ning without a hat. 

Worked during the morning and talked with the 
lads till lunch; then came here, and it is now four, 
and if I am to get to see the Janets I must go at once. 
I forgot to mention that they were part of my origi- 
nal plan at Fontainebleau, but I could n't find a trace 
of them there. I did find there, however, their Paris 
address, with no mention of their living at Fontaine- 
bleau, so I guess they've moved. 

It is hot to-day, and I am very sleepy. 

I went to see them in spite of almost deciding to go 
to sleep instead, and it's just as well I did, because 
they are going to Chamonix Saturday. Madame 
Janet was awfully nice; I hardly saw himself at all, 
for he silently disappeared shortly after he came in to 
say "How do you do." You should hear me convers- 



FRENCH WOUNDED 59 

ing in French — I really am better than I once was, 
but still very halting. But it's fun. They have not 
lived in Fontainebleau since the war. 

August 8 
My daily routine has changed more or less. I now 
go to Mrs. Munroe's office at half-past eight and stay 
till about half- past eleven ; then go down and do my 
history work ; lunch at twelve and play round till two ; 
go again to Mrs. Munroe's office and stay there till six 
if she wants me, as she has all this past week ; then go 
down to the wards again and give two English lessons, 
not going home till half -past seven. Of course that 
sounds much harder work than it is, for it is not at all 
concentrated — and can't be. Then sometimes in the 
evening I go to bed and sometimes give an English 
lesson or take a French one. One afternoon I attended 
an operation on one of my men. Yesterday after- 
noon there was a party for the head corridor nurse, 
who is leaving. We, nurses, auxiliaries, and doctor, 
gave her a very pretty little travelling-clock, folding 
flat like a picture frame, with aluminum — no, lumi- 
nous — figures and hands. The officers gave her a 
beautiful portfolio with quantities of pockets and a 
little nickel ink-box. It was a complete surprise to 
her and a great success; champagne, of course, and 
most delicious p^te de foie gras and salad sand- 
wiches — and the graphophone going all the time. 
These little ward parties are certainly genial affairs. 
To-day, after ten days or more of continuous rain, 
it has cleared off into the most gorgeous September 



6o ON DUTY AND OFF 

weather: clear and cold, with masses of dazzling 
white clouds — clear, that is, barring an hour's hard 
rain in the middle of the day. To-morrow is Friday 
and I shall work hard all day, as Mrs. Munroe is 
away, and then Saturday I am going to Chartres with 
Helena F. by way of a farewell party before she goes. 
We are going to spend the night and the whole of the 
next day there. 

M. Henri owns, I should say, all the piano music 
that has ever been written — and plays it all. He has 
a large cupboard, like a big wardrobe, entirely full of 
neat black folders with labels on the back, and an in- 
dex book. There are several folders, for instance, of 
nothing but Beethoven — and each folder is about 
an inch or more thick. 

August 9 
What should you say to my staying over beyond 
my six months? Of late, as you know, I have been 
helping Mrs. Munroe in all kinds of odd jobs and she 
wants me to stay. She is now head of auxiliaries in 
France, a Red Cross position which may or may not 
develop considerably according to the length of the 
war, etc. The plan is to have the auxiliaries train at 
our hospital for a few months and then be placed in 
the various Red Cross or French hospitals. Mrs. 
Munroe will have to visit the other hospitals to find 
out the conditions. She has had one month's vacation 
since the beginning of the war and her secretary has 
had in all two weeks, at different times. She says they 
may either of them give out and have to have vaca- 



FRENCH WOUNDED 61 

tions, any moment, and she must have some one who 
knows the routine of the office to take hold with the 
remaining one. The work I am doing for her is not in 
itself especially exciting, but it is something that you 
have to work into and I am a good way in, and it is 
absolutely necessary. I would keep on with the his- 
tory-taking, so as to stay in touch with the patients. 

That is the case; now what do you say? If it were 
left to me I should stay, for it seems to me I could be 
useful. As for inclination — it is always one*s inclina- 
tion to be useful ; and apart from that my inclination 
is so strong both ways that I hate to think of not do- 
ing either. At present it seems to me as if I had been 
here about two weeks, but probably I shall feel differ- 
ently by the winter. If you feel that you can't bear to 
have me gone more than the allotted term, all you 
have to do is to cable "No." I will wait three weeks 
for you to do that, before signing on with the Red 
Cross. 

Paul W. turned up in the front office to-day, look- 
ing very tall and thin in his uniform and feeling 
rather morose because he had come in the night train 
from Boulogne sitting up in a compartment with 
seven Frenchmen who would n't let the window be 
opened. He and twenty-seven other docs came over 
as part of the American Army, were transferred to 
the British in London, to the French in Boulogne, 
and are still a bone of contention. He does n't know 
what will happen to them, but expects to be sent on 
somewhere to-morrow. 



62 ON DUTY AND OFF 

August 15 
We had the most perfect trip to Chartres, barring 
the fact that we missed the first two trains we tried 
for : the first one I looked up wrong ; and for the sec- 
ond we arrived fully two minutes ahead of time and 
found every carriage full and the guards simply 
would n't let us get on; we just had to stand there 
with our mouths open and watch the train pull out. 
We couldn't believe it had happened; we had ar- 
ranged the whole afternoon (a pleasant one, never- 
theless) with the one idea of getting that train. But 
eventually we arrived, after passing through the most 
adorable little collections of picture-book cottages 
you ever dreamed of, and spent the night in a very 
spick and span hotel, where the next morning I had 
my third bath since reaching France. We reached the 
cathedral at eleven minus the quarter, assisted at 
mass for about an hour, went out for lunch, took a 
walk, returned and had another hour's service, went 
out for tea, and came back for half an hour more, this 
time in complete solitude. I don't feel as if I ever 
again should see anything as beautiful. It was an 
overcast day, and when we first went in we could see 
no details — just darkness, enclosed somehow, loom- 
ing up all around us. Then gradually the windows 
began to glow and finally all the pillars and arches 
were lighted up by the wonderful deep light coming 
down from all the ages through thousands of jewels. 
I can't describe the richness and fact-in-itselfness of 
the light — you felt swallowed up in beauty. The 
glass must be the best in any cathedral, I should 



FRENCH WOUNDED 63 

think; I could stay there gazing at it forever. Then 
the music was beautiful at both services, especially in 
the afternoon when there was a full choir as well as the 
organ. Oh, it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, 
and never to be forgotten. Helena and I have made a 
rendezvous there for Easter; but I don't promise not 
to go down there again in the interval ; it strikes me 
as being singularly worth while. 

This afternoon I am going in to St. Sulpice, where 
they are said to have very fine music, for it is a great 
church festival — the Assumption. To-morrow, if 
still alive, I am going to Evreux to spend the day 
with Louisa and Penelope. 

August 21 
Last Thursday I went to Evreux as scheduled. It is 
a most beautiful trip, and the day was perfect. The 
train runs along the side of a great hill much of the 
way and partly along a little ridge between two val- 
leys. You have long views down winding valleys 
with a river or two at the bottom, and the slopes all 
cultivated in narrow strips of different shades of 
green and brown. Up on the high ground, right by the 
railroad or across the valley, are the darling little vil- 
lages, almost all roofs — delightful red-brown moss- 
grown roofs — and garden walls covered with grape- 
vines; and each village with its miniature cathedral. 
The sky was very blue with masses of very white 
clouds — just the day for a high hill and deep valley 
landscape. Evreux itself is a pleasant town with a 
very steep grassy hill right behind, and good though 



64 ON DUTY AND OFF 

not wonderful cathedral, and a gem of an old church. 
The hospital is still full of Boche prisoners, and the 
girls live in an old chateau — very empty, and light 
and airy — down the street a way. We went out to a 
hotel for lunch, and after lunch climbed the hill and 
lay on our backs in the sun, looking across the town 
to other hills, and hearing the incessant soft boom of 
the cannon. It is not any nearer the front than Paris, 
but being high up, and away from the city noise, you 
always hear it there. The other night they heard an 
attack begin, perfectly distinctly. The war news is so 
fine to-day ! — the French attack at Verdun, and the 
great number of prisoners taken by them and by the 
Italians. We are wondering whether the Americans 
are not at Verdun. . . . 

Friday night Lucy Fletcher and I dined up on 
Montmartre, and afterward went over to take a look 
at Notre Dame. It is the first time I have been in 
Paris in the evening when I was responsible for find- 
ing the way, and it gave you the queerest feeling to 
get lost (as far as not being able to find what you 
wanted goes). It was absolutely pitchy dark. We got 
out of the Metro on the Cit6 and literally felt our 
way down two streets, and then there was the river 
most unexpectedly and I was so turned round I had 
absolutely no idea which way to go and we had to en- 
quire, twice, in fact. Then coming back we tried to 
find the same Metro (which I have taken half a dozen 
times before) and entirely failed, and had to cross the 
river and look for the next station. Lucy is a rock 
of calmness, but I confess that I felt just as if I were 



FRENCH WOUNDED 65 

In a nightmare and should have to spend the night 
wandering round the pot-blackl and endless streets. 
Neuilly is relatively well lighted and there are no 
streets to get lost in. I am glad, however, to have 
realized how dark Paris is. 

I don't think I have told you anything about my 
pupil Teilhard, who is really quite a charmer. He also 
is a farmer, but not the hand-to-soil farmer that 
Michel is. I gather that he is very well off, and he 
has extensive vegetable gardens — growing much the 
same vegetables we do. He has a very smart-looking 
sister. He is an officer, of course. I was so surprised 
the other day when I first saw him out of bed, for he 
is miles tall, and most of them are small. His charm 
lies in the fact that he almost always says the unex- 
pected thing (rather a pose, I think, but it gets you 
all the same) and that he blushes every time he 
laughs. For the rest, he looks quite sick with great 
big eyes in the thinnest possible face. But when he is 
talking to you it is just to you and that is very en- 
dearing. He is an extraordinarily devout Catholic, 
having little private masses every other morning 
early; but he has a great sense of humor. I have just 
left him Alan Seeger's poems, to prepare one for to- 
morrow. 

More than time for bed, so good-night. "Bien le 
bonjour a tous les camarades," as the boys say. 

September 4, 1917 
You will be thunderstruck to receive this letter in 
an ordinary plain envelope, instead of the gay, little, 



66 ON DUTY AND OFF 

daintily scented affairs, in which I flatter myself my 
epistles have heretofore arrived. But that is not the 
worst: henceforth, no stirring accounts of aeroplan- 
ists falling in rapid multitudes through the sky, vic- 
tims of air battles ; no more pen-pictures of our Ameri- 
can laddies in camp, no more harassing tales of 
trench warfare, or still more harrowing sketches of 
the treatment we ourselves are undergoing — all 
color, all life, all emotion is torn from my poor letters 
by the following: 

Letters written by the personnel of this Unit must com- 
ply with the following regulations : 

1. Envelopes must be plain, and bear no return ad- 
dress whatsoever. 

2. No mention must be made of any city or town in 
France which would give a clue as to where the 
writer is or has been stationed or where any other 
Unit or body of troops is or has been stationed. 

3. No mention must be made of any military opera- 
tions or of the movement of troops or of aeroplane 
activities, nor any statement concerning the physical 
condition or morale of the armies. 

4. No critical statements of any kind are to be made 
concerning any thing or person connected with the 
military establishment of the United States or of any 
of the Allies. 

5. No maps, pictures, photographs, or negatives of any 
kind may be enclosed in a letter, nor any statement 
sent for publication in any newspaper or magazine. 

6. The only address allowed by the censor is : American 
Red Cross Military Hosp. i, American Expedition- 
ary Forces, France. Distinctive addresses, such as 

or , must not appear on either envelopes or 

enclosures. 



FRENCH WOUNDED 67 

7. Correspondence must be signed by name in full, not 
by given name only. 

8. Letters are to be mailed at the Rue Borghese entrance 
and are to be left unsealed. 

Etc., etc. (Signed) 

Lieut.-Colonel M.C., Commanding. 

Did you ever, in your life? Well, you will all have 
to exercise your imaginations as you never did be- 
fore, reading my well-known likes and dislikes into 
all statements of facts. I wish I could tell you where 
we are stationed ! It is a great grief not to be allowed 
to. I think, however, that it is safe to tell you that we 
are in a smallish town near a largish city, through 
which flows a medium-sized river; but not a word 
more — the rest you must construct for yourselves 
out of your scanty material. 

Another reason why you will never have another 
decent letter from me is that I am so everlastingly 
busy. Especially this week, because Miss Hall, Mrs. 
Munroe's secretary, is away for a week's holiday, so 
I am really, instead of theoretically, on duty from 
eight to six. Of course that does n't allow any time to 
see the men or give my English lessons, so I do that 
from six to half-past seven — et voila une longue 
journ6e. I have also taken on a new corridor in addi- 
tion to the old one, for histories, which is very nice 
and very interesting, but more work than the other, 
as the new doctor dictates a fairly long diagnosis, de- 
scription of wounds, etc., and I take it in shorthand 
and write out the whole on the typewriter, making, 
of course, a much better-looking sheet. 



68 ON DUTY AND OFF 

I don't think I told you of a picnic Miss Wilson 

and I had out at St. C , a town not far from here. 

(I think I had better at once adopt A.T.N.F.F.H. for 
the above phrase, and A.L.N.C. for a large near-by 
city, it will save so much time.) Well, aforesaid town 
has a very lovely park on a cliff or prominence, over- 
looking A.L.N.C. and underlooking a beautiful ex- 
panse of sky. We started forth about five, with a bag 
full of provisions for a most delicious supper, and af- 
ter taking the wrong car and walking miles and miles, 
we arrived, selected a grassy place with the best pos- 
sible view, spread forth our viands — and discovered 
that the only thing we had forgotten was the solid 
alcohol! So we had a most healthful meal of bread 
and butter, and carried back our coffee, condensed 
milk, bacon, and eggs. We had remembered matches. 
Nevertheless, the morale (I think we are neither of 
us members of the armies, though I am not quite 
sure) of the picnickers was such that they had a per- 
fect time in spite of slight drawbacks. The sky did its 
best for us, and its best is not to be sneezed at — 
gorgeous masses of goldy and blackish clouds, just 
letting the sun through in little driblets and streaks 
that moved gradually across A.L.N.C, lighting up 
first one striking and familiar landmark after another; 
last of all a snow-white church, of Moorish turrets, 
which stands on top of a hill. ... I tell you how I can 
speak of places here, without bothering any one — 
I will call the L.N.C. Boston, and A.T.N.F.F.H. 
Brookline, or Chelsea, or Dover, as the case may 
nearest seem. . . . 



FRENCH WOUNDED 69 

I have been twice to lunch at Miss Radcliffe's, 
and, oh my, the food ! Never have I tasted anything 
equal to it in all my days. And there was an ambulan- 
cier there, just back from Chemin des Dames, where 
he — oh, but, alas, that would be his physical condi- 
tion. Well, anyhow, he is going back to his wife and 
three children and I fancy they may like to spend 
some time at Saranac — the mountains are so lovely 
all the year round. He told all kinds of thrilling tales 
— so thrilling that it just made every emotion in you 
come to the surface at once. Even discounting some- 
what for a vivid temperament, as his evidently is, 
your hair would stand on end with horror and joy 
and interest, to hear him. The first time he took me 
home in a taxi, which he had kept waiting all the time 
we lunched and talked, and the second time he called 
for me and took me over in a taxi; that was rather 
chic, was n't it? I am invited to go again this Tues- 
day, but I can't get off. Miss Radcliffe and the Le- 
coques were just as nice and cordial as they could pos- 
sibly be, and most agreeable. The house has all sorts 
of beautiful things in it. Do you know, I am the only 
woman of my acquaintance here, French and Ameri- 
can alike, including little Denise Henri, fourteen years 
old, who does n't smoke? I have always hated it when 
I have tried it, but I feel rather out of it, I must con- 
fess, from a social point of view. 

I am having a beautiful time in my best ward now, 
being appreciated. The nurse whom they adored has 
gone and they detest the new one. 



70 ON DUTY AND OFF 

September 6 
I suppose I may consider that I am to stay over — 
have been so considering, in fact, for some time. I 
shall be very glad to see through a winter here, 
though the autumn has set in very badly, — cold and 
rainy, — and every one feels moved to tell you how 
truly awful the winter is. Apparently it sleets almost 
all winter, and the cold penetrates to the marrow and 
never leaves. Everything is damp all the time and it 
is so dark that you can't read in a room with two big 
windows after half-past two without artificial light. 
Sounds jolly, does n't it? You get a cold that you 
keep for months, and food gets worse and worse ! But 
as I say, I shall be glad to know what it is like. 

I wish I could have had you with me out on the 
corner terrace late this afternoon. It is really the 
pleasantest time of the day, for my particular men 
are most of them collected there, on sprawlers or in 
wheel-chairs, and the day nurses have gone and the 
night nurses not come, and there is a general air of 
sociability and relaxation. I usually leave the office 
just after six, tired and prepared to go straight 
home ; but I have to pass by that little terrace and I 
never am able to resist sitting down and spending an 
hour or so — and get quite rested in the process. 
They are so nice. There are three particularly nice 
new men ; one very rosy-cheeked and round and cun- 
ning; another, just very nice with a lean face and very 
blue eyes that laugh in a most infectious way ; and the 
third quite a beauty, rather Spanish style — espe- 
cially in the evening when his temperature goes up 



FRENCH WOUNDED 71 

and gives him bright color to contrast with his 
masses of wavy, jet-black hair and very dark gray 
eyes. I wish I could tell you what it is about these 
men that is so utterly different from Americans and 
so thoroughly charming; great abandon and respon- 
siveness are two things — no pent-up, restrained, 
self-conscious emotions. No, that's not it at all; I 
guess I can't tell you — and you will never know 
from pictures, for I did n't from Jamie's, and it takes 
time before you feel it even with the actual men; at 
least it did me. Their touch is lightness itself — 
that's nearer the central point than anything I have 
got yet. Then they suddenly say something that 
makes you want to cry, like poor old Petit, who said 
this morning: ''Mees, I dreamed last night that I was 
walking around on my two legs, and it was so nice." 
As soon as he is in condition, Petit and I are going to 
take a cab and go in to A.L.N.C. and have him fitted 
with the very finest American leg we can find, and 
then we are going to have a wonderful dejeuner — 
the latter part of the plan being Petit's. This morning 
I went into one of the wards where they have only 
jaw cases, to talk with one of them who is printing 
photographs for me, and seeing ten or so together 
that way, every one with his face ruined (tempora- 
rily at least) , none of them able to speak intelligibly, 
all of them drooling and sucking, just made me shud- 
der. When you see them separately, as I have done 
right along, you so quickly learn to know them that 
you entirely forget their looks. 
When I got back to the office I found my filleul, 



72 ON DUTY AND OFF 

the one I took of my own free will (I had to get rid of 
the other), waiting to see me. He is quite sweet and 
unbelievably ugly. So I made a rendezvous with him 
for seven o'clock, met him at the Porte Maillot and 
took him to a Duval restaurant for dinner, and then 
across the street to a very good cinema. He enjoyed 
the dinner enormously, I may say. He tucked his 
serviette in his neck and always wiped his mouth 
with the back of his hand, saying as he did so that it 
was so long since he had had a napkin that he did n't 
know what to make of it, and after the soup, and 
6galement the beans, he took up his plate and drank 
what remained — which was very little. When two 
elegant French gentlemen sat down next us he offered 
them our partly used bottle of mineral water (I did 
not confine him to mineral water) — which may of 
course be de regie, I don't know, but it seemed odd. 
However, they took it very well and conversed with 
us more or less, my boy usually leading the conversa- 
tion. He calls me just plain *' Marraine " and says it 
every third word — **Yes, Marraine," "No, Mar- 
raine." It sounds just as if he were calling me " mere." 
Mother asked me, by the way, if I always wore my 
veil in the street ; I don't at all, or hardly ever, but 
when I go out with blesses or filleuls, I do; that at 
once explains the situation to any one and in a veil I 
really believe you could go anywhere or do anything. 
I enjoyed the cinema much more than my godson 
did, and yet he ought to have, for it was very funny, 
part of it, and the humor of at least one of the plays 
was broad enough to suit any one. Perhaps the fact 



FRENCH WOUNDED 73 

that they are all American makes them more amus- 
ing to us, though the audience as a whole roared with 
laughter. The part of it I really enjoyed most he did 
too — the pictures of the war. He kept laughing with 
glee when the cannon went off, and saying, " C'est 
bien ga, Marraine." He talked to all the people in 
front of us and behind us, and they seemed to regard 
it as the most natural thing in the world. I have n't 
seen any war pictures over here before, and you can't 
imagine how queer it is to have the thus and so at 
Morte Homme, or C6te 304, or Chemin des Dames 
thrown on the screen, when I have had men from 
them all; somehow cinemas never seem at all real at 
home, but these did, I can tell you. Then in an evacu- 
ation from a hospital at the front, one of those whose 
names I have so often written on my records, there 
were our ambulances, or at least the American Field, 
looking so exactly as they do that I could n't believe 
I was n't in the Ambulance yard. I want to go again; 
but it begins at half-past eight and that means an aw- 
ful rush after dinner, as the war pictures come first. 
Saturday I went to dinner with Bobby and George 
and had a most wonderful party. I met them at their 
hotel — having spent my first night in A.L.N.T. 
there I still feel as if I owned it — and we took a 
taxi and drove through the Place de la X.Y.Z. and 
across the river, with a most gorgeous sunset up the 
boulevard behind the Arc, and reflected in the river, 
and called for Mr. and Mrs. Crocker, . . . and then 
drove for miles, more or less, out beyond the city 
limits to the Pare Montsouris, where there is a de- 



74 ON DUTY AND OFF 

lightful little restaurant called Pavilion du Lac, be- 
cause if there had been enough light we should have 
found ourselves near a darling little pond. As it was, 
there was no light, but you had the feeling, as you sat 
out on the back piazza of the Pavilion, that endless 
country spread before you, more endless, I dare say, 
because of the darkness. Anyhow, the wind blew 
through the trees, and it was delicious — and there 
were lots of stars. In the large room — there is only 
one — there was a wedding party, of about fifteen 
people, bride in white lace and veil with wreatl\ of 
orange blossoms, and everything very comme il faut. 
We were on the piazza, just outside an open door, 
with a low screen between us, and there was no one 
else there at all. Of course, we peeped over the screen, 
and then they came and peered back, and pretty 
soon we were drinking healths all round, and the 
bride came out and gave us little artificial orange 
blossoms from her wreath. They had a good deal of 
singing — solos, of, one would say, the most doleful 
character, all minor and about sixteen verses long, 
which Mrs. Crocker says are the regular and neces- 
sary accompaniment of a French wedding dinner. 
They, and we, got gradually more and more warmed 
up, and when they sat down and started to play 
dance music, one of the girls came out and invited 
George to dance — which he at once did. Then an- 
other invited us all in, and for about an hour we had 
the most delightful Bostoning — delightful, that is 
for those of us who danced with each other; the men 
who danced with the French girls had the worst of it, 



FRENCH WOUNDED 75 

for the girls could n't reverse. They could n't play 
particularly well, and neither could Mrs. Crocker, 
and you know that I have but a poor pennyworth of 
dance music, but between us we managed to have a 
great time; and when it came to going home, the 
girls kissed Bobby and George and Mr. Crocker (who 
was in U.S. uniform) soundly on both cheeks, and me 
too. We were all turned out of the restaurant, ac- 
cording to law, about half-past ten, and the whole 
party (from which we speedily detached ourselves, as 
we had no wish to be run in) went carousing and 
snake-dancing down the street, singing ** Madelon, 
Madelon, Madelon" at the top of their lungs. I will 
get the music and send it home — the boys sing it a 
great deal. Now, I ask you, was n't that a party? 
And incidentally we had the best dinner I have ever 
eaten. They were so cordial, and we had such a good 
time — none of us had danced for ages. 

September 9 
I had a morning off, and cooked one of my inimita- 
ble little breakfasts — the big treat this time being a 
poor attempt at toast. At eleven I went to the Rus- 
sian Church, which is wonderful; the next time you 
are here you must do that, if nothing else. You go into 
a round church, quite small in area, with round 
arches every direction — overhead, and an upper 
and a lower one on each side — something like St. 
Sophia. The walls are all covered with either mosaic 
or frescoes, I am uncertain which, in effect like the 
front of St. Mark's — dull gold background and 



76 ON DUTY AND OFF 

really beautiful figures in soft, full colors. The floor is 
covered with a thick carpet, and there are almost no 
chairs or seats of any kind ; every one stands through- 
out the hour and a quarter. The first-floor round arch 
opposite where you come in is filled up about half- 
way with a very beautiful screen, in this same gold 
and color — panels, with figures, and carved wood 
between panels. I must try to get some pictures of it to 
send you, for I loved it. In the centre of the screen 
was an open-work door — brass, I should say — which 
was closed. There were a few little side altars, but 
arranged symmetrically, and all making part of the 
general scheme and beautiful in themselves, instead of 
making a most awful melange the way they do in the 
cathedrals. People bought candles, and came and 
lighted them and stuck them in a circle in front of 
these little shrines, but the candles were real, and the 
little yellow flames were lovely. When the service be- 
gan, the priests were behind the screen, and the door 
still shut, with a heavy curtain hung behind it. The 
whole place was so tiny that you heard everything 
perfectly clearly. There were a few minutes of inton- 
ing, and then the most exquisite singing burst forth 
you can imagine; it was the Russian choir we heard 
at Symphony Hall, Father, only invisible, and in the 
most fitting surroundings. After a short time the cur- 
tain was drawn and the doors opened, showing the 
big altar — the simplest table, with a beautiful great 
mosaic behind it and seven yellow candles, coming up 
in a peak, in front — and a priest dressed in crimson 
velvet, an old man, with a long, black beard. The 



FRENCH WOUNDED 77 

whole service, which lasted more than an hour, con- 
sisted of intoning, with responses by the choir, and 
two readings from the Bible (apparently), and two or 
three anthems. It was very religious in feeling, and 
the singing was perfect. How I wish you could go 
there ! You would all simply adore it. Sunday, alas, is 
a hard day for me to get off, but I shall go as often as 
I can. It was nothing at all like one's idea of a church, 
and yet it was as churchly as possible — the building, 
I am referring to now. 

Came back to lunch at the Ambulance, worked till 
six, and had a very pleasant hour on the terrace. Al- 
together a good day. , . . 

I see so many neurotic people! I don't mean at the 
hospital, but in the cars, and at public places. I don't 
know whether it is the war, or whether I have physi- 
cal signs rather on my mind. 



CHAPTER III 

U.S. AIR SERVICE, PARIS HEADQUARTERS 

September 13 
You will be as surprised as possible before you have 
finished this letter, but you can*t be much more sur- 
prised than I. This morning I was peacefully in the 
office, when the telephone rang for me and Amy 
Bradley asked me to go in to lunch with her. It tran- 
spired that Betty Potter would be there, too, and had 
some business to talk to me about. After lunch, all 
the other girls filed silently out of the room, leaving 
me and Betty for our business conversation, and then 
she outlined to me a position she considered most im- 
portant — secretarial work at the technical depart- 
ment of the Aviation Headquarters. The position had 
been offered her by her friend Mr. Skinner, and she 
had refused it. They were in desperate need of an 
American secretary, and implored her to come if only 
for a few weeks, and she promised to give them her 
three weeks' vacation time or find some one else. 
Well, she made me feel that it was of sufficient im- 
portance to go and talk to Mr. Skinner, and the up- 
shot is that I am ''confidential secretary to Major — 
Somebody," and begin work there Monday at nine. I 
wish I could give you his line of argument, or rather 
the details, for I can give you the line; anyhow, he 
made me feel that I simply had no right not to go if 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 79 

they wanted me. He feels that our great contribution 
to the war is airplanes, and that the quality and 
quantity we turn out in the next six months may de- 
termine the war, and will certainly decide whether it 
is to be six months longer or shorter; and that if the 
work failed anywhere along the line it would be the 
worst failure we could make; and that one place it 
might fail would be in the office — if they did n't 
have the right personnel — and that at present they 
lacked painfully an American secretary. He said that 
in his mind there was absolutely no question as to 
whether I ought to give up the work at the hospital 
or not; that where there I was helping to care for a 
few hundred blesses, here I would be helping prevent 
there being thousands of bless6s, by shortening the 
war. I can't tell you all the things he said but I just 
felt I 'd got to do it. Mrs. Munroe was awfully nice 
about it, though it is detestable to go off in this way 
when she expected to count on me. But I don't often 
feel such a thorough conviction that I am doing the 
best thing — I know it, this time. It is a real sacrifice 
(though with compensations), for I feel as if I were 
leaving home all over again, except that I can have 
half an hour with my children on my way home from 
work. The work will, of course, be much, much harder 
and more concentrated. The compensations are, in 
the first place, a salary, though just what I don't 
know, and, in the second place, responsibility ahead 
and an opportunity to grow up with a thing that is 
growing at the rate of a mile a minute. I won't take 
time to-night to tell you of the plan outlined for the 



8o ON DUTY AND OFF 

future, especially as it is somewhat vague, for I want 
to post this letter the first thing in the morning on 
the chance that it will catch this week's boat. The 
blesses were too nice about it, and Petit said at first 
that he should demand to be evacuated at once, and 
then, when I said I should visit them every evening, 
he said that in that case he should stay forever. And 
Michel — well, it will just kill me when I do finally 
take leave of Michel. 

I shall stay on at the Henris*, so you might address 
mail there ; though I should always get it at the hos- 
pital. I don't yet know my new address. I shall be 
more directly under the Army, so mail regulations 
will be at least as stringent, I suppose. 

Next morning 
I feel worse and worse personally about this, but 
equally sure it is right; I am just drafted, that's all. 

September 19 
Well, my dearest Father, this time I certainly have 
got one of my wishes — wherever I am not, I surely 
am in a large institution where things go with a hum 
and I work with men. Although I am still uncertain 
as to whether I can do the job, I like it ever so much 
so far. I never should have thought that in two days I 
could get to regard machines as a fascinating subject. 
My, but things move quickly here! A man comes in 
and applies for a job as translator; Mr. Skinner talks 
with him for about six minutes, engages him, tele- 
phones to the supply department for an oak table, 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 81 

several chairs, a file, baskets, etc. ; man is given the 
book he is to start on and a temporary place in some 
one else's office, where he remains for about half an 
hour and is then informed that his office is ready. He 
is asked what kind of stenographer he needs, and she 
is shortly found and established. Et voila! And it is 
that way with everything; they are spreading out 
about an office every three days, as far as I can see, 
and engage several new office workers every day. The 
whole thing is like living in an E. Phillips Oppenheim 
political detective story, and is perfectly thrilling. 

The actual work is rather hair-raising, too, but in a 
different way — it is hard. In the first place, I am 
secretary to Major G., who is chief of the technical 
division of the production end of aviation, of which 
Colonel B. is in charge. Production is one of two di- 
visions of aviation, and includes the choosing and 
training of flyers as well as the decision on types of 
machines and equipment — everything, in fact, ex- 
cept the actual work in the field. Mr. Skinner is the 
Major's Civil Aide, and he and I sit in the outer office 
and guard the Major from undue interruption. All 
the offices are the most beautiful rooms you can im- 
agine, for they have the whole of a brand-new apart- 
ment house evidently built for the very rich — even 
to having a bath-tub ! Mr. Skinner is quite a wonder, 
I think. He certainly does a good job in his difficult 
position of greasing wheels that make about one hun- 
dred thousand revolutions per minute. 

One thing I do that almost kills me is to answer the 
telephone — half the time in French. There is a lit- 



82 ON DUTY AND OFF 

tie switch-board, consisting of only two lines, but it 
about finishes me, even so. One line goes to the cen- 
tral and the other to the Major, and then you can 
make various different combinations of the two. It is 
awfully hard to hear, especially names, for they have 
the receiver and mouthpiece on the two ends of a 
straight handle about six inches long, and the mouth- 
piece is not bent round so that it is opposite your 
mouth, but is flat on, so you speak right past it. As 
every one else's is that way, too, you never hear any- 
thing spoken really into the mouthpiece. It may be 
hygienic (though I am sure it is not done for that rea- 
son), but it certainly is ineffective. Well, then there 
is Mr. Skinner's telephone which I answer if he does 
n't happen to be on the spot, and then there is the 
bell the Major rings if he wants me. And as far as I 
can see, or rather hear, they all have the same bell. 

Of course, I can't tell you any of the actual things 
that go on, for even without being told I can see that 
it would be impossible. So I will say nothing and be 
on the safe side. My hours are rather long, but not so 
long as the men's, who never go home before eleven 
and often stay till one or two. Mr. Skinner says that 
he regards it as he would getting shot — the chance 
of his being worn out, I mean ; some one else will take 
his place, and the work has got to be done on the in- 
stant with just as little regard for health as if he were 
in the trenches. The Major is a terrific worker, too, and 
yet looks as fresh as a daisy. He is quite young, not 
more than thirty- two, I should think, with a vigorous 
profile and bright brown eyes; very quick and de- 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 83 

cided, yet very agreeable and polite and thoughtful 
of others; swears a good deal in a casual, genial way; 
I have n't yet seen a sign of temper ; very effective. 

To give you my routine — well, I can't, exactly. 
In the morning I do odd jobs of typing, with inter- 
ruptions every two or three minutes of telephone or 
people coming in. Then I lunch at some patisserie 
(rather dear, alas), and after lunch the Major is apt 
(on two days' experience I say this) to give me some 
letters, mostly to the Government at Washington 
and written in an exact form, and then there arrive 
certain young mechanics who give him the benefit of 
their ideas on the synchronization of machine guns, 
while I try vainly to take down the gist of what they 
say on a subject and in words I never heard of before. 
However, I feel much more at home with the subject 
to-day than I did yesterday and believe I can learn 
the essential points. If I only had time to go in and 
get a book on the principles of avions I should be 
happier, but everything at the office is in French. 
Then after that little conference is over I still more 
vainly try to make out my shorthand notes. 

My delightful plan of spending an hour every 
night at the hospital has so far gone to the wall, but I 
do go there at eight for ten minutes every morning. I 
suppose I shall have Sunday off — though if they 
both work I shall feel like an awful sneak — and I can 
go to the hospital then. Gone are my days of leisure 
— for leisure it was, even when I worked all day : I 
crossed the garden a dozen times a day and always 
stopped to chat with who and what-all, I went down 



84 ON DUTY AND OFF 

to a peaceful tea about four, I took a long time off for 
lunch, and the hardest work I had to do was copying 
a few lists. But don't you care; I am glad I am in this 
other, and it will certainly sharpen my wits. 

To-day the Major was recommended for a lieuten- 
ant-colonelcy. 

September 21 
By this time it Is Friday evening, and I have been 
at this job four days. I like it better and better. The 
second day I did almost everything wrong — fearfully 
stupid things — and was very discouraged and told 
Mr. Skinner I was n't geared high enough and he 
could send me back to the Ambulance right then if he 
wanted and not waste any more time on me. But he 
said if every one in the office was geared as high as 
the Major, nothing would go because no one would 
attend to the little things that kept the machine run- 
ning, and he thought it would be all right. Well, per- 
haps it will and perhaps it won't; I have no idea. If 
it does, I shcdl consider it one of the most thrilling 
things I ever did. If it does n't, and I were told to go 
to-morrow, I should still be very, very glad to have 
had these few days in an absolutely new world. It 
gets more E. Phillips Oppenheim-y every hour. 

I invested in a gilt-edged blank-book as a diary — 
for I hope to have energy enough to write down 
things as they happen every day. It would be much 
easier to do so if I could write them to you, but I can't, 
so I shall have to find time for both that and letters. 
I go to the Ambulance each morning at eight and 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 85 

find my three particular old bless6s waiting out on 
the terrace; and then we have a little parley and I 
leave messages with them to be delivered everywhere 
over the hospital. This morning Gautherot brought 
forth a little brown paper package and presented it to 
me, and it was three sorts of cooky-cakes ; and Petit 
gave me a most beautiful huge red and yellow apple. 
Some one had brought them these things and they 
had saved them for me — was n't that pretty sweet? 
Petit said it was for ''peekneek." I think they think 
that *' picnic" means little extras in the food line. 

September 25 
I may be said to have fairly got my nose to the 
grindstone this time, and if for a while my letters are 
somewhat scanty it is because I don't want it (the 
nose) to be entirely ground off. And life is certainly 
interesting ! 

Sunday (Sundays will now be the only things to 
tell of, because the interesting part of the other 
would n't get by the censor) I took out all my winter 
things and put away summer ones and sewed a little. 
Then I went down street to meet Petit, Michel, and 
Gautherot — the former with his cardboard and 
plaster pilon, which is the thing they use first for an 
artificial leg, and the other two on crutches — and we 
went across the Avenue de Neuilly to a certain little 
restaurant where we were joined by Dr. Gano, in his 
new American uniform, and there, at a table taking 
up the whole sidewalk, we had a long and very good 
dejeuner — a farewell party, for they have all three 



86 ON DUTY AND OFF 

been evacuated and may go any minute. We had a 
great time. After lunch we hobbled over to the Bois, 
meaning to go to the cinema (which they chose in 
preference to a drive), but of course the electricity 
did n't march just that minute; so we looked at the 
very inferior zoo and then wandered along to an out- 
door concert. 

After a bit Dr. Gano and I left them, and he took 
me to the March6 aux Puces, which is one of the most 
entertaining things I have seen yet. In the first place, 
you go to the Porte de Clignancourt, which is the 
other end of nowhere. There you find a huge waste, 
like the Fens, only perfectly barren ; and laid out on 
newspapers or cloth, on the ground, every imaginable 
kind of old thing — clothes, shoes, china, pictures, 
books, carved Chinese panels worth eight hundred 
francs, buttons, nails, odd lengths of hose, insides of 
clocks, brass bells, candlesticks, etc., Paisley shawls, 
false hair, beds, stoves, canaries — there really is al- 
most nothing that has not its representative there. 
It extends over a space about two blocks long by half 
a block wide, and it is thronged with people who pore 
over these things. And none pored harder than I. I 
bought a brass bell for the Henris, for two francs; a 
silver or nickel or pewter belt buckle for one franc, 
and an American one cent piece of 1857, with a dove 
on it — remember it? The price was two cents, but 
the man presented it to the Doctor because of his 
uniform — it really was too delightful. If we had n't 
been going out to dinner I should have bought some 
china. Father would dote on it, and would doubtless 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 87 

buy lots of nails, pipe joints, bits of leather for wash- 
ers, etc. You always felt that you might come on the 
prize of generations. 

October 3 
To-day is Father's birthday and I send him kisses 
and hugs and wishes for a long, long life after I have 
come home! 

It is so late and I am so tired and my eyes are so 
tired that I am going to cut you very short. The 
Major came in this afternoon at quarter-past five, 
and after having eaten in company with me a most 
beautiful and delicious apple, he settled down and 
dictated one letter perfectly steadily till half-past 
seven, — - and all about monocoques and sur com- 
prim6s and speed scouts and side-slips, nose dives, 
tachimometers, inclinometers, etc. Such jolly dicta- 
tion ! I take it very badly because I can't seem to do 
it, as one ought, purely by sound. I repeat it all, and 
think of other ways he might have put it better, and 
say "x" to myself when he says ** unknown quantity" 
and do all kinds of stupid things like that. He never 
does. I never saw such a single-minded man. He does 
fifty million different things in the day, but he does 
just one of them at a time and during that time — be 
it for five minutes or an hour — nothing else exists 
for him. He tears off the greatest amount of work 
ever imagined. It turns out he is only twenty-six 
years old ! 

If I had written to you yesterday — and I only 
did n't because I did n't think I could stand it — I 



88 ON DUTY AND OFF 

should have told you that I was getting my first real 
experience of the hardships of war — that I had been 
pulled out of a nice, easy, very delightful job that I 
could do well, and put into a job that was far beyond 
me, of which I was making a complete failure. I felt 
that I was not coming at all up to their expectations, 
for I am never '*on" to any of the things that go on 
round me, and I never start new schemes for them, 
or anything. But it turns out that the Major is satis- 
fied, so that is all right. The work continues to be 
enormously interesting and I am learning lots of 
things, general and particular. I feel every morning 
when I set forth as if I personally were going to lick 
the Germans, and I can tell you it*s a good feeling. 
Well, the way I must lick them to-morrow is by get- 
ting off that two-hour letter to the Chief Signal Offi- 
cer, on this boat, and if I am to do that I must go to 
bed. 

October 6 
It is very cold and rainy to-day and as the barome- 
ter was rising I brought no umbrella; so I had to eat 
my couple of sandwiches and piece of chocolate in- 
doors and now have a few minutes to write to you. 

Last Sunday I had a delightful visit to my three 
dearest blesses who have been evacuated to an auxil- 
iary hospital outside of Paris. You go in the car for 
about half an hour, to Malmaison, and then walk for 
about fifteen or twenty minutes up hill, through the 
beautiful Pare of Malmaison, and finally come to a 
large mansion on the top of the hill, surrounded by 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 89 

beautiful gardens and the greenest of green lawns, 
and lovely trees. There is a marvellous view, through 
gaps in the trees, across the Seine Valley and other 
valleys, at distant hills, and there is a sense of peace 
and quiet there which is not to be excelled — just 
the place for a poor little war-worn blesse to recover 
himself and bask and expand in the sun and the 
breadth of view. But, alas, alas, things are never 
what they seem, and I found a very disconsolate 
little bless6 who said that the place was all very well 
au point de vue de salubrite, but so far from the 
world and the bistro. They think less than nothing 
of it and would far rather be in some little hovel in 
Paris. The other two blesses had gone all the weary 
way down the hill on their crutches, and in to Neu- 
illy, to visit the Ambulance, and this child had to 
stay at home because he had raised blisters under his 
arms with his crutches. He was sitting in a large, airy 
room which he shares with only two other men, look- 
ing like three days of rain and studying English. So 
first we had an English lesson and then he took me on 
a tour of the domaine. Such tomatoes ! I wished my 
gardening family could see them. The flower garden 
was very large and filled to the Queen's taste — 
much more to the Queen's taste than to mine, in 
fact, for it was of the very formal, bedded-out vari- 
ety; but still, with the well-kept lawns and trees it 
made a very good whole. I almost turned Catholic in 
order to stay there; oh, no, I remember afterwards 
finding out that it was no longer a convent, but had 
been bought by the owner of one of the very large 



go ON DUTY AND OFF 

department stores here as a place where his tired or 
old employes can go and spend as long as they like 
for an infinitesimal sum ; and there is another house a 
little farther down the hill where they take care of 
the sickly children of his employ6s. I should love to 
go out to this infant asylum and take care of them. 

October 8 
Breakfast time. There is a most gorgeous great 
airplane performing for my express benefit — it ap- 
pears out of the clouds, comes straight for me, circles 
round over my very yard, and flies away again, mak- 
ing its other circle behind great masses of cloud. I 
think it is a hydroplane. Here it comes again, for 
about the sixth time. 

It is cold to-day, but the clouds are lovely — pur- 
ple and goldy. I do enjoy to the utmost taking my 
breakfast right in this big French window. The sky 
almost always has something fine to offer, and it is 
such a peaceful, leisurely way of beginning the day — 
leisurely even on days when I don't get out of bed till 
quarter of seven and take the half-past seven car. 

October lO 
Wednesday evening — already after ten. I wish 
Thursday was n't the day for posting letters, for if I 
write Sunday the letter is so old by the time it 
reaches you, and if I wait till Wednesday there's 
never any time. To-day, for instance, I began work 
— half an hour from here — at eight in the morning 
and stayed till six, went to the dressmaker's (I am 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 91 

having my last year's blue jacket made Into a waist 
to wear with the same skirt), another half-hour away, 
returned for. dinner, and afterwards went to the 
Lauths', where one of Madame Lauth's innumerable 
brothers or brothers-in-law just back from Flanders 
was giving an account of their doings there — al- 
most all of which I missed. I saw, however, his very 
interesting pictures of captured German balloons and 
airplanes, of Guynemer, the French aviator, — the 
*'ace of aces," — of the guns and trains painted k la 
Mr. Thayer, and of various towns in Flanders. I also 
saw on a very large-scale map what the French and 
English have done since July 30, and, oh, it looks so 
small ! But its importance is evidently not in propor- 
tion to its size. 

At noon to-day '* a soldier" was announced for me, 
and I went down and there was Petit, all smiles, come 
to dejeuner with me. He had just received permission 
for ten days, and was starting that very night to visit 
his family down beyond Lyons. His father and mother 
have been once to see him at the hospital, but he 
has n't seen his two sisters and nephews, or his 
brother-in-law whom he adores, or been home for 
eleven months. He was all excitement. He says they 
will be just making the wine. I lent him my kodak 
and two films to take pictures of all the family and 
the wine-making. They simply love snap-shots: 
Petit's entire luggage consisted in his pocket-book, 
with his permission papers and a canvas bag with 
photographs of different people at the hospital. So 
we had dejeuner together at a little cafe. I simply love 



92 ON DUTY AND OFF 

*' going out" with them, for they have such wonder- 
ful manners and always take charge of choosing the 
table and getting a waiter and ordering (whatever I 
have selected), and hurrying the waiter up, etc. This 
time the dejeuner was on me, and then Petit ordered 
cafe for us as his treat. 

Last Sunday I went out to see the three of them 
again, at Malmaison, and as it was a villainous, chilly, 
on-the-verge-of-rainy day they met me at the car and 
conducted me to a little bistro, where we had the 
whole place to ourselves, and treated me to drinks. 
First we had porto — doux for Mademoiselle and 
less so for themselves. I suggested eating at the same 
time the sandwiches I had brought to picnic on, but 
they were horrified and said that one never ate and 
drank porto at the same time. So, very slowly and 
with much conversation, we consumed our tiny little 
glasses of thick yellow stuff. I thought they had en- 
tirely scorned the sandwiches and was just going to 
put them back into my bag when they started to open 
them. Then it appeared (I shall never learn these 
things right) that one could n*t eat sandwiches with- 
out drinking; so we had big glasses, of Bordeaux this 
time, and lots of healths and the four of us gobbled up 
twenty sandwiches of p^t6 de foie gras and marmalade 
(not mixed). 

I can hardly wait for your first letter after knowing 
I Ve changed.. I shan't feel in communication till then. 

I enclose this carbon of my letter to Mrs. Hitch- 
cock, in case I say anything in it I have n't said to 
you fifty times before: 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 93 

Mother has told me the delightful news that you have 
given me twenty-five dollars for a blesse. There are so 
many things to do for them! I have decided to put this 
twenty-five into the price of a first-class artificial leg for 
one of my particular friends called "Petit." He is the most 
entertaining and dehghtful person — very small, very 
thin, with one leg amputated and an arm that looks un- 
believable in the X-ray, it is so broken and twisted, a 
crooked nose (not as a result of the war), and a tilt to his 
head that makes him look just like a bird, and the greatest 
sense of humor. He is not one of those who are almost 
imperturbably good-humored and content, but has great 
ups and downs; but when he is up, there is no one more 
active and amusing. He goes hopping round the ward on 
his one leg, scorning a cane (he cannot use crutches on 
account of his bad arm) and going about twice as fast as 
the men who have two legs. It is really quite remarkable 
to see him go, for usually the amputes are so afraid of 
falling that they go very slowly even with crutches. He 
was a coiffeur by trade, and what he will do later I don't 
know, for it will be a long, long time, if the time ever 
comes, before he can use his arm. Yesterday he was an- 
nounced for me downstairs at the Aviation, where I am 
now, and had come all the way on foot from the Etoile 
(which would take me fifteen or twenty minutes walking 
fast) to tell me that he had been granted a leave of ten 
days and was going down to visit his family near Lyons. It 
is eleven months since he has been home, and he was as 
excited as possible. Whenever we meet we always talk 
of the wonderful leg he is going to have when he is ready 
for it, and I really think it is the thing he looks forward to 
more than anything. He always assures me that on the 
day when we go to get it we will go to a restaurant 
and have the very best dejeuner we can find — and I al- 
ways agree that that will be the big party of the year. 



94 ON DUTY AND OFF 

October i8 
I have had rather a social week. I have taken lunch 
in company with Mr. Fairbanks a number of times, 
and he is very nice and entertaining. Then I went to 
supper with Helen and Edith and Catharine McL. 
the night before they left for a French hospital at the 
front — as near the front as a woman can get — be- 
tween Soissons and Rheims. They had only just got 
their orders the day before and were leaving the next 
morning at six, so they were highly excited. They all 
seemed in fine form. They will have the most thrilling 
experience in the world, now. I saw yesterday one of 
the auxiliaries at the Ambulance who is about to 
leave to join a friend (whom I used to know at the 
Ambulance) at a French hospital near Verdun. This 
other girl is in the operating-room where, during this 
attack, she has been on duty with the shortest possi- 
ble intervals for food twenty-four hours at a time. 
She sleeps in a little tin hut alone and is anxious to 
have her friend arrive, for she finds the hut a little 
lonely when the shrapnel begins to patter on the roof! 
One nice thing about this job is that I have to cross 
the Champs Elys6es, about midway between Etoile 
and Concorde, every morning, when the sun (if any) 
shines directly on the Arc de Triomphe, and the 
chestnut trees are all russet-colored and the avenues 
are full of blueness — it really is worth while. From 
our balcony we get a delightful view, toward Mont- 
martre on one hand and the Eiffel Tower on the 
other. The beauty of Paris is more and more striking. 
But getting home in the evening — by which I only 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 95 

mean seven o'clock — is less charming; either I have 
to go in the Metro and be absolutely jammed to jelly 
in a hot, smelly crowd, and then quite a little walk on 
the other end, or else I have to go over to the surface 
line, wait fifteen minutes or more, and then have two 
or three cars (at long intervals) go by, too crowded to 
take any one on. I felt so mad last night, after strain- 
ing every nerve to get on three different cars and fail- 
ing, that I almost decided the Metro was better. 

The job continues to be most interesting and in- 
spiriting. There are hundreds of people in and out of 
the office all the time, French and English and Ameri- 
cans, and something doing every second. And the 
Major is still a joy to work for. I never saw such in- 
stantly focusable concentration as he has. Leaving the 
outer office, where the telephone is ringing and every- 
body is wanting everything, and going in to him to 
take dictation is just like finding the still heart of the 
storm; you realize that everything is whirling and 
raging with great force, and yet it is centralized and 
unified so, there, that — well, I break down on words 
at that point — do it for yourself. 

I enclose a letter from Petit' s father — I told you 
Petit had just gone home on convalescence for a few 
days. He evidently believes in phonetic spelling. 

Ma chere demoiselle : Veuillez je vous prie m'excusez de 
la liberte que je prend pour vous trasser ses quelques ligne, 
mes avan tous laissez moi vous dire que notre cher fils 
cherie vien d'arrive chez nous pour nous rendre visite, sait 
se que nous a donne la joie et la gaite, de le voir si bien 
remis aussi c'est a son non que je vien vous remercier de 
tous les bon soin apporter par vous et les bon service que 



96 ON DUTY AND OFF 

vous lui avais rendue. Aussi, Mademoiselle, je vien vous 
remercier beaucoup de tous se que vous avais fait pour 
notre cher fils tant aimer; je ne saurais trop quoi faire pour 
vous rendre le bien que vous lui avais prodigue. Mainte- 
nant Mademoiselle vous pouvez croire que nous serions 
heureux si un jour vous 6tiez de passages a Loriol de bien 
vouloir vous arrete pour nous donner un bonjour, sa nous 
ferais grands plaisir de faire votre connaissance et vous 
regevoir dans les conditions qui vous et du, vous meriter 
tante notre attention, tante notre estime. Croiyer, chere 
demoiselle, que moi et ma femme nous vous remercion 
beaucoup et notre fils nous prie de bien vous remerciez a 
son tour et vous donne un bonjour et une bonne poignee 
de main san nous oubliez. Mercie encore une fois, chere 
mademoiselle; au plaisir de vous voir un jours, recevez 
toutes nos amitiez. Vos ami pour la vie, 

Monsieur et Madame Reynier, a Loriol, Dr6me. 

Mon fils vous remercie beaucoup de son petit paquet 
que vous avez bien voulue lui donner. A sa grande sur- 
prises lorsquil a ouvert de lui trouve le contenue de 
lO f . Aussi mille fois mercie. / 



Sunday, October 28 
Father's lovely fat letter of September 26 reached 
me two days ago, with several others. None from 
Mother since one of September 20. Yes, indeed, I 
have received your clippings from Uncle Joe's calen- 
dar and your post-cards ; I am always in so much of a 
hurry when I write that I forget to say so. The picture 
of Radcliffe adorns my wall and the post-card of the 
West Boston Bridge I show to all Boston people to 
make them homesick. I have n't tried it out on Skin- 
ner or Fairbanks, but I will. The sugar and grape- 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 97 

nuts I have not received. The newspaper is fine when 
it comes, which it does more or less irregularly ; I cut 
out two good pictures and stuck them up: one of 
Lloyd George, Sir Douglas Haig, and Papa Joffre; 
the other of Cousin Lawrence and Cousin Henry. 
How I wish I could have been at home on Mother's 
birthday — or indeed on any other day ! While I am 
not homesick, I should more and more enjoy a few 
days at home. However — 

Every one in the office has had terrific colds ex- 
cept me. I have an awful feeling that one is coming on 
now, though. It is n't that it is awfully cold, but the 
constant fog, with intervals of rain and about five 
minutes of dazzling sunlight every two days, is very 
penetrating* 

This afternoon I went to the Ambulance and had 
hardly gone into Ward 69 when a man appeared with 
a letter in Louisa's handwriting, and behold Filleul 
Alfred! She has chosen well, I should say; he seems 
like a particularly nice man — very sympatica, very 
cheerful, interesting, well-mannered, altogether very 
satisfactory. I could not see him long then, but gave 
him two bunches of cigarettes which I happened to 
have in my muff and invited him to dejeuner with me 
the next time he has a Sunday off — in about three 
weeks. His present address is 104 Rue Muliers, Comp. 
C.B.P., Ivry, Seine. He has been transferred and is 
now on a boat, carrying munitions and other insects 
up and down the river. He appears to be both boat- 
man and carpenter — or joiner, rather — by trade. 
He wants to be transferred again somewhere where 



98 ON DUTY AND OFF 

he does only carpentry and no boating, though not 
because the river work is cold in winter, which I 
should think would be a first consideration. He has 
been three years in the trenches and never received a 
scratch. His company has been emptied and filled and 
emptied and filled to the extent of three thousand 
men, of whom only he and one other remain of the 
original set. Ill-expressed, but you see what I mean. 
He received a citation quite recently of which he is 
going to send a copy to Louisa, and he is evidently a 
first-class man. Was n't it funny that he should hap- 
pen into the ward during the very ten minutes I was 
there? I was so glad. 

I lunched to-day with the Janets and had a good 
time. The daughters are gentle, intelligent, and genu- 
ine. Beside them there was a boy, a cousin, and two 
girls — one an English girl who has lived twelve years 
in France and is a great friend of Helene Janet's. 
To-morrow she is going to Aviation to apply for a 
place: wouldn't it be funny if she came into our 
office? I hope she will. We take on a new stenogra- 
pher about once a day, it seems to me. She is as bright 
as a button and fearfully well read; particularly at- 
tractive. The other girl was a doctor — a surgeon ! 
Also very agreeable. We had quite a chat about 
wooden legs. Dr. Janet was lively to a degree. Both 
he and Mrs. Janet loved Boston and he says he will 
go back with me after the war. He was genial and 
spicy. The table conversation was such fun and so in- 
teresting! The English girl had much to contribute; 
her father is a newspaper man, writing up foreign 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 99 

affairs for some English paper, and she knows very 
much what is going on. Dr. Janet sends Father his 
** compliments." 

Saturday Petit came in and we went in town for 
lunch and to have him measured for his new leg. He 
is to try it on Thursday. At dejeuner a lady next 
Petit began to talk to him and told us all about her 
son, who had been killed. Poor thing; she wept more 
or less and said how glad she would have been to have 
him lose a leg and an arm like Petit if only he had 
come back alive, and how he had felt the same way; 
she would have worked her fingers off to support him. 
She was a widow and had no other children. Petit was 
awfully nice to her; he really is a most understanding 
soul. 

Saturday evening I went to the Lauths* to dinner 
and that was very nice, indeed. They are a homelike 
family and their conversation is interesting. One of 
their younger pensionnaires is studying the piano and 
practises five hours a day ; he has also a marvellously 
clear and full voice and sang Handel's Largo with 
violin, piano, and 'cello accompaniment, like an 
angel. They played a trio by Beethoven and some- 
thing heavenly by Mendelssohn. 

October 31 
You seem to have such a vague idea of what I am 
doing and yet I don't see how I could be much more 
explicit. I rejoice to say I have been relieved of the 
telephone. Though I have done it once already, I am 
sure, I will again give you my day. Arrive at about 



loo ON DUTY AND OFF 

eight; open the windows; try to make the Major's 
desk look a little more aesthetic; sharpen many pen- 
cils; if Mr. Skinner isn't there, take papers from 
*'out" basket and sort them, giving practically every- 
thing to mail clerk; and start on letter- writing if I 
have any dictation in my notebook. If I have none, I 
get a folder of letters from the file room and try to in- 
dex them, which is awfully hard. They are trying to 
get the files into shape so that we can really find pa- 
pers on the dot. There are millions of papers that may 
be urgently needed at a moment's notice and may 
be demanded under a million different guises. It is 
really a job. I wish you would have the Library Bu- 
reau send me their pamphlets on filing — especially 
on the '*L. B. Automatic Index." 

Well, then probably I am called in to the Major 
for dictation, and sit there watching the blue curling 
smoke of his pipe in the sunlight and taking his let- 
ters. Perhaps he will have other technical people 
there, on wireless or photography or meteorology or 
instruction, and they will discuss the types and quan- 
tities of the various instruments and equipment 
needed, dictating a paragraph or two on each point 
as it is decided. And the smoke of both their pipes 
goes twisting and turning bluely up through the sun- 
light. I am so glad I enjoy smoke; it is a real joy to 
watch; one woman left because she said one of the 
men had "insulted" her — he had smoked in the 
very large room where she worked. Do you know, by 
the way, I am going to make a strenuous effort to 
learn to smoke without making faces of distaste or 



U.S. AIR SERVICE loi 

looking as if I thought I were going to bum my fin- 
gers. I literally have n't been anywhere where all the 
women, French or American, don't smoke — and 
when I went to the Janets* and Madame and the 
girls and their guests all did, I really decided I 'd have 
to learn — it seems so curt and unsympathetic to re- 
fuse to do what every one else is doing with enjoy- 
ment. But I cannot imagine that I shall ever like it. 
To return to my routine — that goes on off and on 
all day — dictation and writing, with some indexing, 
and asking every man who comes to the office what 
his name and address is, interspersed, of course, with 
snatches of conversation. I 'm afraid I don't make it 
sound very interesting, but it is — just keeping up 
with what goes on in the livest department of the 
most up-to-date and important branch of the Army 
is thrilling. 

Monday I dined with Bronson and a doctor and 
wife, his friends, at a very old restaurant with mar- 
vellous food, on the left bank of the river. After dinner 
we went back to these people's apartment and sat 
round the fire in one of the prettiest rooms I ever 
saw, and Bronson told thrilling tales of battle, mur- 
der, and sudden death from the British point of view. 
I thought he seemed in very good form. It certainly 
was good to see him, only I wanted the time to be 
longer. He looks particularly well carrying a cane — 
which is obligatory for English officers and forbidden 
for Americans. There seem to be all kinds of rules for 
the appearance and behavior of English officers; the 
French certainly do exactly as they jolly well please. 



102 ON DUTY AND OFF 

It is raining now and I suppose will to-morrow. 
But when the weather is fine, or semi-fine, the great 
avenues with the blue, hazy distance and the bronzy 
chestnut trees against the bluey sky (it all is **y"ish 
— not clear-cut) are wonderful, wonderful. But I 
have seen no bright-colored leaves, though I believe 
there are some good dark reds along the river, out of 
town. 

To-day I lunched with Mr. Fairbanks, and Erica 
came round at seven to go out to dinner with me, only 
Mr. Skinner invited us both to go with him. So for 
the second time this week I went to a very chic res- 
taurant and had wonderful food, served by the owner 
of the restaurant himself — "Joseph" — who told 
us beforehand how unusually delicious certain things 
would be and they were. At half-past nine we were, 
according to law, turned out and then Erica and I 
sat in the rain, without umbrellas, on a bench under 
the trees of the Champs Elys6es for a while. Now I 
am writing to you and I don't dare look at my watch, 
but I will — six minutes of one. I had no idea it was 
so late and am not in the least sleepy — coffee again. 

November 9 
Don't be afraid I will give away any State secrets, 
for in the first place I have no desire to inform the 
Hun, and in the second place almost all my letters 
will come censored. 

We have had some hectic days in the office lately, 
what with new officers dumped on us, early morning 
and unannounced inspection tours by Pershing (who 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 103 

left death and destruction in our unmilitary milieu), 
and specially bad weather. Did I tell you I no longer 
have to struggle with the telephone? It is a perfect 
blessing, for the telephone system is worse than hope- 
less and the French telephone girl a perfect idiot 
whose word I don't trust for a minute and who an- 
swers back in the most insufferable fashion; I want to 
throw bricks every time I have to use the appareil. 

I am still keen on the job, though I am so slow I 
have to give myself extra long hours. How I wish I 
could tell you some of the things that go on through 
this office ! * 

What did I do last week? Lunched with Petit and 
Michel once, and had the following from Gautherot : 

Dear Miss Putnam : 

Le secretaire de Tassociation des trois bequillards vient 
d'abord vous adressez les meilleures amities de I'equippe, 
tout en regrettant bien de n'avoir pu accompagner, di- 
manche, mes deux camerades, mais defense de marcher et 
cette defense n'est pas encore levee; mais si cela dure trop, 
je crois que je passerai outre aux ordres, et sortirai quand 
meme. 

Le Petit a ete essaye sa jambe lundi, et il espere I'avoir 
bientot. II est tellement heureux de I'avoir que je crois que 
ce jour-la il est capable de faire le saut perilleux, chose dont 
vous pouvez vous rejouir et 8tre fiere, car il sera grace a 
vous que le Petit pourra marcher. II est vrai que vous Stes 
si bonne et si devouee pour ceux qui ont donne leur sang 
pour la cause de I'humanite, qu'il ne faut pas s'etonner 
d'une chose qui k vous semble toute naturelle. Vous m'avez 
dit un jour, si vous vous souvenez, que nous etions una 
grande race; eh bien a mon tour je vous dis, ce que vous 
faites pour mon camerade est grand. Je trouve que le geste 



104 ON DUTY AND OFF 

de remplacer un membre vaut la peine d'etre admire. Vous 
pouvez me croire, c'est un blesse qui s'y connait aux beaux 
gestes, qui ose vous le dire. 

Je vous enverrai un mot pour vous dire nos intentions 
pour dimanche. J'espere que vous pourrez dechiffrez cette 
horrible griffonnage. 

Recevez de tout trois les sinceres et bonnes amities, 

Bien k vous 

E. Gautherot 

Will you write english for me. Je commence a oublier. 

Did you ever hear anything much sweeter? It takes 
the French to do a pretty thing like that. 

I am planning to try to get up a Camp Christmas 
party here. I shall put a notice in the New York Her- 
ald ^ for I think we might get quite a number and have 
a real party. 

November 13 
How extraordinary that our quiet stay-at-home 
family should be so scattered and doing such different 
things! That is the immediate effect on me of reading 
the first bunch of Molly^s letters. I don't really be- 
lieve it 's us. 

The most important social event of the moment is 
that both Sidney F. and Mr. Lippmann are going 
away. I' shall miss Sidney, for I have enjoyed many 
lunches in his society and various slow walks out to 
Neuilly in the evening, with him reciting yards and 
yards of poetry or singing endless and delightful Eng- 
lish ballads. I shall miss Mr. Lippmann, too, very 
much. He is going over to England for a six weeks* 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 105 

training for something — supply officer, I think — 
in Aviation ; and then will go to the front somewhere 
or to one of the schools. Sidney is going to-morrow to 
Italy on a volunteer ambulance section. Well, c'est la 
guerre. I have just written to Mary L. to see if she 
won't come up and do the files. 

To-day Cousin Richard came to lunch. He is very 
nice and I loved seeing him. We are at once setting 
out to get all the Americans in Paris to sing Christ- 
mas carols. We hope to get started this Saturday 
evening ; and I must immediately make a list of every 
one I know. We are going at the list on a large scale, 
and I hope we may get a decent crowd; though if 
most people are as busy as my Aviation crowd I don't 
know that we shall succeed. Speaking of Christmas, I 
received last night from Mrs. Wigglesworth the most 
delightful-looking Christmas stockings I ever laid 
eyes on. In case I don't get a letter off to her on this 
mail will you telephone out and tell her they arrived 
safely and it will be the greatest fun in the world to 
give them? 

The weather has not been bad so far, as far as cold 
is concerned, but it has been thoroughly damp and 
disagreeable. I have discovered just one rule for the 
weather: if it starts out rather cold and absolutely 
overcast and damp, it stays that way all day and you 
don't need an umbrella; if it starts pleasant (at all 
pleasant, for it never starts or finishes really pleas- 
ant), it rains before an hour or two is up. I shall have 
to take some time off sometime soon and buy some 
lined gloves — not that my hands are any colder 



io6 ON DUTY AND OFF 

than at home, but evidently if I am to avoid chilblains 
I must keep them warmer. My feet are always wet. 
But as I am in the best of health and am the only 
person in my acquaintance who has not had a very 
heavy cold, I dare say I shall live through. 

Sunday I had a full and pleasant day. I went to see 
Mrs. Munroe first (after having cooked my Sunday 
breakfast of bacon and fried apples, toast and coffee) 
and thought to get inoculated, but it appears that 
the hospital has only typhoid and para together. 
Then I met Bobby J. and went to the Russian 
Church — as lovely as ever sauf one soprano who was 
villainous. Then we went to lunch, and after a lei- 
surely meal went to Notre Dame for the organ music 
there — so different from the other. From the church 
point of view I much prefer the Russian to the Ro- 
man, but the music was wonderful in each. After- 
wards we walked for many blocks, past the Mus6e 
Cluny, which is, alas, closed, but is enchanting just 
from the outside, over to the Rue des Saints Peres, 
where I met Mr. Fairbanks. I went with him to the 
Sauveurs*; then we dined, "and after we dined we 
wined,'* and then walked for miles and miles down 
the Boulevard Rasp ail and the Boulevard Saint- 
Germain, Mr. Fairbanks singing without cease all 
the way. Soothing and agreeable. He took me back 
to Neuilly, and then the day was over. 

I wrote you the night I spent with K. R. in town, 
but I wrote before I had looked out her window in the 
morning over the marvellous bronze chestnuts under 
a dappled pink-and-gold sky, and before I had 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 107 

walked up the wonderful, wonderful Champs Elys6es! 
The view and the walk would almost reconcile me to 
living at the Crillon — but not quite ; certainly not if 
I had to breakfast in the mausoleum of a dining-room 
as I did this time. 

November 21 
I am sure you will be interested to know that yes- 
terday I took my courage and my money in both 
hands, demanded an afternoon off, and went and 
ordered a suit! My plum-colored one (to give the 
rusty thing a pretty name) has decidedly seen its best 
days and does not look at all well for my Sunday calls. 
The color of the new one is red ! — though not quite 
as red as I wanted. It has some black, fake fur on the 
collar, and as I have no black muff I think I will 
make him put a little on the cuffs. Of course, it is 
rather expensive, and I shall have to get a hat and 
waist to go with it, but I do like to have something 
a little amusing to wear Sundays. 

The great piece of news is that the pep and punch 
has gone from the ofhce — the Major has been pro- 
moted out of sight. It all happened very suddenly, 
day before yesterday, when a whole bunch — the 
Major's own word, so I know it is right — of officers 
dropped out of the sky and landed in every depart- 
ment, reorganizing the whole of Aviation and putting 
every one in a different place from where he was 
before. The Major is now a lieutenant-colonel and 
the third most important person in all American 
Aviation, being Assistant Chief of Staff to General 



io8 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Foulois (who pronounces himself Hke an Irishman not 
a Frenchman), the head of it all. From the Major's 
point of view (I suppose) and from the Country's, it 
is great; but it happened so quickly, without the 
slightest warning. 

That has so eclipsed everything else this week that 
I hardly know how to tell you of other things. If I 
follow Father's plan and begin at the end I may re- 
member what has happened — though I have a very 
queer lack of sense of time here, so many things hap- 
pen that three days ago seems like three weeks. 

Monday: Madame Henri, Jr., and Mr. Chochod, 
the lodger, came for me and took me out to dinner in 
A Large Near-by City. It was quite the Frenchiest 
restaurant I have been to yet, chock full of people 
all talking French instead of being about half Eng- 
lish or Americans, as they usually are. That was 
amusing. Sunday: Chanced to meet Hilda W. and 
Nora and had supper with them at Colombin's. Then 
carol practice, which went very well, I think, except 
for the fact that there were about fifty women and 
four men. I hope next week we'll get more. It was too 
good to be true to be singing carols again. Saturday: 
Was rather tired and went home to supper. At noon 
went round with Fairbanks to see his old battered am- 
bulance, which he had driven at Verdun and other 
choice spots and in which he has now fared forth to 
Italy. Friday: worked long hours — eight in the 
morning till eight-thirty at night, except for lunch. 
Thursday : farewell party with Sidney — dinner at 
the Franco-Italian restaurant, with the best Italian 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 109 

wine I ever tasted, then took the car to Porte Maillot 
and went to walk in the Bois. We had quite a funny 
time in a way. When we went in we carefully noticed 
how we should have to go by the stars in order to get 
home; and then, of course, by the time we wanted to 
go home the stars were completely hidden by fog. As 
usual I was sure I could find my way by instinct and 
as usual I thought after awhile we were completely 
lost — we were, too, inasmuch as we had no idea 
where we were — and as usual we came out just 
where I meant to, the only drawback being that we 
found ourselves locked into the Bois; but a whistle 
and a franc got us unlocked. Wednesday: Worked 
hard and got home late. To-day did the same, pleas- 
antly broken by lunch with Bobby, who has his com- 
mission and is off in a day or two for real work. 

This is a stupid letter, but it is the best I can do for 
the present, as I must go to bed. As soon as the in- 
terval is over and things running smoothly again, I 
shall doubtless not start work so early nor end so late; 
but gladly would I work all evening to have the old 
hustler back to make you feel that the work will 
really help win the war. I keep thinking of how proud 
his mother must be of such a son — just barely 
twenty-seven and one of the most important people 
in the most important branch of the Army (or so we 
consider it). 

November 28 
I am in high hopes of letters to-morrow and also of 
the promised Thanksgiving candy — to-morrow be- 



no ON DUTY AND OFF 

ing that festival. Lieutenant Skinner, Mr. Lippmann, 
and a particularly nice boy called Kenneth Gaston, 
and I are going to dine together somewhere by way 
of a family party — the funny part being that S. 
really is family. 

I have made the acquaintance of the most melting 
child: twenty months, quite plump, with tight red 
curls; understands English and French (one parent 
being one, the other the other), but doesn't talk; 
not particularly shy, and utterly absorbed and deter- 
mined. His costume was as abbreviated as possible, 
like all the children here. I am going there to lunch 
some day to see more of him — ''there" being the 
abode of an English girl whom I met at the Janets' 
and who now works at Aviation. I think we might 
become very good friends if there were ever time for 
such a thing. 

Sunday I lunched with Petit and Gautherot and 
Dr. Gano and then the doctor and I walked in the 
Bois for a couple of hours — it was a beautiful day, 
the first for a couple of months — never rained till 
about half -past eight. To-day I saw Petit with his 
new leg — a last fitting — and it is going to be great. 
He was in fine feather. 

December 5 
I tried to write a poem or think of a joke for the 
Christmas Tree, but they would n't seem to come, so 
I send the enclosed — which will doubtless come too 
late. 

I worked at the office till eleven to-night, came 



U.S. AIR SERVICE in 

home and ate bread and honey, and it is now too late 
to write. I am well and working hard — much harder 
them I thought I could and get away with it. 

Christmas Breakfast — Two Pictures. 

I 

In France: Coffee, grapenuts and milk, and E.C.P. 

II 

At home: A long table with quantities and quantities of 
the nicest people in the world round it; and on it — oh 
me, oh my! Ham and eggs and turkey and hot biscuits 
and baked apples and coffee with cream in it ! 

Children rushing madly about, impatient for the Christ- 
mas Tree — and the latest baby brought in at ten by the 
nurse. Then the Tree and Cousin Frank singing his song, 
and the bucket and sponge ready to put out the blaze; and 
lapsful of presents for everybody, even for those who think 
they are too old to get any this year; and poetic poems and 
funny jokes, and finally every Mother-of-a-Family stag- 
gering down the street with her market basket full. 

Well; all I can say is, which breakfast party would you 
rather be at? Merry Christmas! 

December 9 
This is Sunday morning and in spite of having just 
had a delicious breakfast of coffee and toasted honey 
sandwiches, I am in a perfect gloom : partly because I 
dreamed Mother came to visit me, but chiefly be- 
cause I am going to church with le Capitaine Truchet 
and then out of town to visit some friends of Sylvia 
D.'s who are half Cuban and half Bostonian — and I 
have been planning all week to wear my new cos- 



112 ON DUTY AND OFF 

tume for the first time and it is pouring rain. Pouring 
so steadily that it is impossible to think it will clear in 
an hour. 

Yesterday I was getting an address from one Miss 
Livingston in the information bureau, of a place to 
buy a very cheap muff to match my coat collar, and 
it seemed to be too far, so she whispered to me that 
Monsieur de Monclos (a youth standing by) was just 
going that way and would I like him to get me a 
muff? Of course I said I should be enchanted, so she 
turned and told him, and without showing the slight- 
est surprise he said he would be delighted, and did I 
want one of the new smart shapes larger in the mid- 
dle and quite small at the ends? I almost collapsed — 
fancy a boy at home knowing exactly what the latest 
shape in muffs was ! It is the Frenchest thing I have 
met yet. Well — he got me a cute muff, not at all ex- 
pensive, but gray instead of black — the latter being 
more expensive and less chic. I can change it if I 
want, and I wish you were here to decide. I think I 
shall keep it, for I hate furnishings, whether of people 
or houses, that match too well, and it will be such 
a bore to change it and look for another — though 
M. de Monclos said, of course he would take it back 
for me — why should I bother? 

Does Louisa by any chance know Kenneth G.? As 
nice a boy, all-round, as I have ever met. Any girl, 
etc. Twenty years old, came over in the Norton- 
Harjes Ambulance. Of course he is leaving in three or 
four days with Mr. Lippmann for a course in Supply 
in England. Then every one I was in the habit of 
seeing will have gone. Such is life in Army circles. 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 1 13 

There are three colis for me at the Ambulance and 
I am going to get them this morning. Perhaps it is my 
Thanksgiving treat! 

. . . After my bad start this morning I certainly 
had de la veine. We — le capitaine et moi — reached 
the Russian Church fifteen minutes early, but went 
right in, and found, contrary to custom, four men in 
civilian clothes, under academic gowns of gold-and- 
white brocade (the combination was bizarre), stand- 
ing in the body of the church, one of them swinging 
incense down the main path (there are no pillars and 
no seats and therefore no aisles) after each person had 
come in — as a greeting to that person, I thought, 
but it turned out to be to re-purify the air for the 
very grand personage who entered later. This was 
evidently a top-notch bishop or something like that. 
He entered finally, in black robes with a tall black 
cap with veil hanging down behind, and two heavy 
chains about his neck, and crucifix on each. He was 
welcomed by a burst of song from the choir and went 
immediately to the inner temple for a minute or so, 
conducted by two of the gold-and-white civilians 
who held him firmly by either arm. He had a very 
long black beard and was quite stunning. They then 
brought him back, stood him on a dais in the centre 
of the church, and brought up a stool with a pile of 
neatly folded stuff upon it and proceeded to clothe 
him in the following garments — each of which he 
kissed before donning: (i) surgeon's gown of white 
satin, enormous sleeves wrapped tight and tied around 
wrists; (2) a broad fitted band around the neck and 



114 <^N DUTY AND OFF 

coming to the ankles — white, marvellously em- 
broidered in gold ; (3) a narrower band, same embroid- 
ery around waist, tightly tied behind; (4) deep em- 
broidered cuffs; (5) a large eighteen-inch diamond, 
white and gold with gold fringe, hung from neck with 
gold cords, and eventually hanging outside every- 
thing at one side, like a satchel; (6) a heavily em- 
broidered gown split up at the sides, but entirely cov- 
ering everything that went before, except the satchel ; 

(7) two stoles, one around the neck and hanging down 
in front, the other vice versa — I think it 's stoles I 
mean — broad, unshaped bands — these more heav- 
ily embroidered in gold than all that went before; 

(8) the chains and crucifix; (9) a great solid gold 
crown or bonnet, with enamel pictures — medallions 
— at the sides. All during the process the choir sang. 
I forget just what ceremony came next, except that 
he was presented with two gold three-candled candle- 
sticks, which he dipped toward one part of the con- 
gregation after another — evidently a blessing — ■ 
and had his hand kissed on presentation and recep- 
tion of the candlesticks: this was done at the end of 
each part of the service — perhaps half a dozen times 
in all. Then he went to the screen, which I have de- 
scribed before, and the doors opened and he was 
joined by four more priests all in gold-and- white, one 
with a crown like his and the others in tall red velvet 
caps — two very old ones with long white beards and 
rather long white hair, the others with coal-black 
beards. The service I could n't understand, naturally, 
but there was much more singing beside the re- 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 115 

sponses than usual and at its very best. We were at 
one side in the very front where we felt very much 
part of it, and I can't tell you how solemn it was and 
how moving — the people's way of kneeling and 
bowing themselves to the floor is somehow very 
touching. It is so different from the Roman Catholic 
Church: Partly, I suppose, because the church is so 
small, but partly for more important reasons, I imag- 
ine, it all seems so much more intimate and personal 
— quite thrilling. I feel I was in the greatest luck to 
have happened on to-day. The music was perfection. 
Then I lunched with Truchet. 

The Champs Elysees is still green; I wonder if it 
ever changes? 

Last week and the early part of this week I had a 
good deal too much to do, but now we have six en- 
listed men, who seem a good lot, in the office, so I 
have less. For the time being I am still on call for 
Colonel G. and have had one or two interesting 
papers. 

By this time it is Thursday the 13th. It is incredi- 
ble that Christmas is so near. We are going to sing on 
Christmas Eve and also on Christmas afternoon. I am 
lunching with the Dells, where that darling little red- 
haired baby boy is. 

December 16 
Do not think me unsympathetic if I don't com- 
ment more on your letters. . . . But I will certainly 
comment on people's being so fearfully nice as to give 
me money. I will write to them all, of course, in time. 



ii6 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Aunt Isa*s, I think, and perhaps part of the rest I will 
use for Christmas or the Jour de lAn, which is their 
great time, and get things for some of the bless6s who 
have gone — they will have less done about them ; 
and also Mrs. Wigglesworth has sent me twelve won- 
derful stockings which I shall distribute in Ward 69 
and to Michel and Gautherot at Malmaison. 

December 26 
Your cable arrived this morning, and very nice it 
was — though I wish it had been you instead. 

This is not to be a letter and there will be none this 
week. I have just drunk six cups of weak tea with lots 
of lemon in it, and I invite your inspection of the 
time-table below for the last three days — then you 
will see why I am anxious to go to bed early the rest 
of this week. 

Please bear in mind that it takes at least half an 
hour to get from anywhere to anywhere. 

Saturday J December 22 : 

Work as usual ; went in town to buy something at 
noon. Dined with F. Clarke to arrange party. Spent 
some time freezing in biting wind on the bridge 
watching the aeroplanes drop rockets — false alarm of 
a raid — wonderful night — brilliant moonlight above 
and misty over the river. Got home about 10.15. 

Sunday y December 23: 

Left the house at 9.30; went in town and walked 
up the Bid. de la Madeleine buying joke presents 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 117 

from street venders — coldest wind I ever felt ; thou- 
sands of little packages to carry — mostly not tied 
with string. 

1 1 : Reached F. Clarke's hotel and we went over to 
the restaurant. Went to the market hard by and 
bought holly and mistletoe. F. had trimmed the cun- 
ningest little fake tree you ever saw — about a foot 
high. Wrote slightly humorous inscriptions for the 
presents; arranged currant jelly and candied cherries 
in little dishes ; table really looked quite pretty. 

11.45: Back to hotel; washed up; met the people; 
waited several hours for Nora and Hilda; turned out 
they thought it was to be Christmas, so we had seven 
men and three ladies. Very genial, good food and 
quite near-homelike. 

3.30: Back to Neuilly; packed up Mrs. Wiggles- 
worth's stockings, ten of them, two having gone out 
to Malmaison, and lugged them over to the hospital 
— no light load ! Paid a call on Ward 69 and bought a 
bead chain made by a blesse for Aunt B. 

6.30: Went in town; had dinner; went to the Red 
Cross rooms; moved about fifty chairs and tables; 
read some shorthand notes. 

8.30 : Carol practice — extra long. 

10.30: Home again. 

Monday^ December 24, 

8.00: Left Neuilly. 

8.30-9: Bought and arranged holly with big bows 
of red ribbon at the window or door of four offices; 
glad I did, for Colonel D. told me to-day that he 



ii8 ON DUTY AND OFF 

thought as many as twelve officers had said how nice 
it was. . . . Tied elegant pieces of red ribbon round 
ten cakes of Baker's chocolate which I stole from Mrs. 
W.'s boxes, substituting French chocolate of first 
quality for it — because that was just as well liked by 
the bless6s and American chocolate is so much appre- 
ciated by Americans — and gave them to the younger 
boys in the office. I hope Mrs. W. does n't mind it. It 
was the only Christmas present one of the boys had, 
because his family expected he would be back. 

9-12.30: Worked. 

12.30-2: Lunched and went in town to buy a Boy 
Scout knife for Max. 

2-4.30: Worked. 

4.30 : Left and went a thousand miles to the Hospi- 
tal of Val de Gri,ce where we sang carols downstairs 
to officers and doctors, and upstairs in a big ward 
where the windows had never been opened — really 
a GREAT success. 

6.30: Dined with other carolers. 

7.30-8.30: Back to the office for a message as to 
where Sylvia Dell had been able to get a room for the 
night. 

8.30-9 : En route for a canteen at the Gare du Nord. 

9-9.30: Sang to about three hundred soldiers — 
room thick with smoke. Went pretty well, though 
every one was tired. Got back to the hotel about 

10.15 : Lay down half an hour or more. Later joined 
by Sylvia Dell and Kenneth. 

1 1 : Went to St. Germain for the midnight mass. 
Only seats left were in the last row, even at that hour. 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 119 

12-1.15: Service. Quite lovely singing, including 
the song Coz Frank sings at breakfast. 
1.30: Something to eat, and bed. 

Tuesday, December 25 — Christinas : 

6.40 A.m: a hot bath! 

7.50: Reached hospital, brought the stockings 
down to the ward. Greatest possible success. They were 
crazy about everything. 

Mrs. Wigglesworth would certainly have been sat- 
isfied if she had seen Ward 69 at eight o'clock that 
morning. The night nurse had gone off duty and the 
day nurse had not come on, so I had the men all to 
myself and no one was trying to make beds or clean 
up. They had different methods of opening the stock- 
ings, but the favorite was to take all the little pack- 
ages out first and arrange them on the bed to gaze at 
and then slowly unwrap. They loved the colored 
papers; and the big red ribbon, which they said they 
should keep always. The favorite things, I think, 
were the drinking-cups and the "funny" things — 
*'guignols" they call them. There is one specially 
slow and solid man, rather older than the rest, who 
was really infatuated with his guignol. I left him still 
pulling the string and beaming at it. 

When I was leaving Petit asked me to tie a silver 
string he had wound round a tiny parcel done up in 
Mrs. W.'s red tissue paper, and then gave it to me 
saying that it was nothing — a little souvenir of 
France. I stuck it rather carelessly into my belt (for- 
tunately did n't lose it) and did n't open it till later 



120 ON DUTY AND OFF 

at home, and what do you suppose it was? The ribbon 
barette with the palm, in bronze, of his croix de 
guerre ! — the thing you pin on your coat instead of 
wearing the whole medal. Did you ever hear of any- 
thing so sweet? I guess I '11 never in my life have as 
nice a Christmas present as that, again. 

9-10.30: Breakfasted, and opened my Christmas 
presents. At ten Bobby came, being down for two 
days. 

10.30-11.45: Walked by the Seine and back by the 
Bois with Bobby, which was uncommonly nice. 

11.45-12.30: Got dressed and went to the Dells* for 
lunch. 

12.30-3: At the Dells*; the Arosarenas were there 
and very nice, and Giles, Sylvia's nephew of about 
eighteen months, with bright-red fluffy curly hair 
and the pinkest cheeks and whitest neck in the world 
— in a cream-colored flannel suit, with emerald- 
green collar and cuffs — ravissant! 

3-3.30: En route. 

3.30: Sang at another French hospital — went 
finely. 

4.30-5.30: En route and singing at a Red Cross 
gathering, which was almost the nicest, for there's no 
getting round the fact that the French do not appreci- 
ate Christmas. 

5.30-6: En route. 

6-7 : Resting, dressing, and going to the Lauths*. 

7-9.30: Dinner, tree (without presents), music. 

10: Bed. It makes me sigh again to reach that 
point. 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 121 

Sunday, December 30 

I adore Father's "rambling letters," so don't ever 
let him make them any different. 

This has been a "Christmas every day" week. I 
told you about the things that came on or before 
Christmas Day. Mrs. L. sent me the most delicious 
cake that ever was tasted: a Union dark chocolate, 
cake with fluffy white frosting under a thin coating 
of chocolate, on top, and more white in the crack. I 
can only say that it travelled perfectly, that there are 
Bostonians here to whose eyes it brought tears of joy, 
that there is no cake worthy the name in France — 
just ridiculous little pastry affairs — and that my 
birthday is February 21st. Mrs. L.'s cake arrived here 
at the ofhce and did n't last very long. Oh, but it was 
good ! — and about twenty-five people had a piece 
of it. 

To-day I had allotted for staying in bed, clearing 
up, etc., in order to get rid of a little cold I have had; 
but the Infant Hercules having returned I came down 
to the office at nine and have been here ever since — 
half-past four — though I have had almost no work 
from him, as he worked last night till six this morning 
and did n't get here till twelve in consequence. But 
there were various other hard-up-for-a-typist gentle- 
men to work for. 

As for living in Paris, of course it would save much 
time and be much better, but I am so thoroughly es- 
tablished I hate to move. Everything is the way I like 
it: I like the people, I do just what I want, and yet 
have some one to talk to when I do go home, etc. 



122 ON DUTY AND OFF 

They have enough coal to keep the living-room very 
warm. My room is cold, I admit, but I am never there 
except when I am in bed — except when I get up in 
the morning, and then it is going some to stand in the 
middle of a flat tin tub and have a cold sponge. It 
seems as if shortly we should have no petrol ; in fact, 
already I feel very guilty if I read in bed any length 
of time. 

I have bought quite a pretty chain, I think, for a 
birthday present for Aunt Bessie. The blesse who 
made it described it to me as ** tres discret " ; I hope 
it is also gay enough to suit her disposition. I have 
been wearing it with much pleasure myself for the 
last week. 

The Jour de TAn is such a terrific holiday here that 
they are closing down one of the chief airplane facto- 
ries (all, I dare say) for two days! 

All the really smart children who play on the 
Champs Elysees have peasant women for nurses — 
Bretonnes, I should say — with enormously full 
skirts and sleeves trimmed with very broad bands of 
black velvet, black velvet pointed bodices, and little 
white embroidered caps. Many of them have delight- 
ful brown-red weather-beaten faces, and those very 
smooth foreheads and clear brown eyes that seem to 
go with the peasants. Little white aprons often. I 
have tried to see why the children look so very well 
dressed and have brought it down to four things : they 
wear very bright, clear colors — rarely browns and 
grays or dull colors ; the hats or caps match the coats 
or are very evidently meant to go with just that par- 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 123 

ticular costume; the legs are very neatly encased in 
leather gaiters all the way up ; and the hair is always 
hanging, often curled or curly, and almost always 
striking in one way or another — there is a great deal 
of bright- red hair. 

Last night I went with Kenneth to *'Tosca" — 
ravishing! Very well done: excellent acting and fine 
voices. The music is too beautiful ; I wish I could see 
it three nights running. To-day we were to go to 
Chartres, but "the boys" decided we were all too 
tired and it was too cold to get up for the early train ; 
and I must say I think they were right. So I slept 
late and met them in town at Henriette's, where we 
lunched together and then went to see the pictures at 
the Luxembourg — which did n't thrill me. They 
have n't much of a collection. Give me Angelica Pat- 
terson's Souls, Mrs. Page's babies, Sargent's Rocky 
Mountain camps, with the blue smoke going up, a 
few Sorolla bathers, and an occasional Hallowell 
great oak tree on a hill, and you may keep your Lux- 
embourg. Oh, just add some Carl Larsen water-colors 
of his own children — and I will have them, please, in 
a warmish place, and not in a dark hall with a stone 
floor, several degrees colder than the air outdoors. 
That would have been another trouble with Chartres 
— neither train nor cathedral would have been 
heated; so we have put it off till next spring. After 
that we went and warmed up on some hot coffee. 
Kenneth left us to pay a call, and Lippy and I walked 
down Boulevard Raspail across the Place de la Con- 
corde bridge (hanging over the parapet a long time 



124 ON DUTY AND OFF 

to watch the single red light of each automobile ap- 
proach the bridge beyond us and become two lights 
as it passed, apparently through space, over the in- 
visible bridge and was reflected in the river below). 
Then I came out and paid a little visit to Ward 69. 
Petit is sweeter each time. He has let his hair grow 
longer and it is rather curly — he is almost good- 
looking. He is to be evacuated soon to a hospital 
near his home in the south of France. 

I have been working quite hard this week, the In- 
fant Hercules being de retour, including a Sunday and 
an evening or two; but New Year's evening I went to 
a very gay and very pretty, old-fashioned musical 
comedy called **Saltimbanque" — had great fun. 

January 9, 1918 
I have invented a way to get up in the morning 
which makes it almost a pleasure instead of an unen- 
durable torture. I have been having my window shut 
(by poor Madame Henri who murmurs, ''Quelle hor- 
reur, quelle horreur!" under her breath as she does so 
— they all shut theirs about two months and a half 
ago) and my quart of hot water brought at quarter of 
seven, and breakfast at quarter-past. Well, it seemed 
almost impossible to get up into that utterly chilly 
room and take an ice-cold sponge and get dry with a 
very damp towel ; so now I have breakfast at quarter 
of seven in bed, and of course I have to sit up at once 
for that, as otherwise the coffee would be stone cold, 
and by the time I have eaten breakfast and written 
a bit of a letter, if I have time, I am entirely ready 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 125 

to get up. The only trouble is that I dress more 
slowly because I am so much more comfortable. 

To-day I have received the Christmas Box and 
your letters written after Christmas, so I feel as 
though we were really having Christmas together. 
The Box was great fun — really more fun than if it 
had come Christmas. 

Last night I had a very amusing time. I went out 
with Lippy and Kenneth to see the old lady Lippy 
lives with. He met her last autumn walking in the Park 
and fell into converse with her, and she said her son 
of just L.'s age had been killed in the war, and L. re- 
minded her so of him — and would he care to come 
and board with her? She dotes on him and absolutely 
spoils him. Her parlor is about eight by five and her 
kitchen four by five, and I could touch the ceiling (I 
think). She was thrilled at having us, and had pre- 
pared apple fritters, which we had with sugar Lippy's 
mother had sent her, and Bordeaux — then tea. We 
had quite a hilarious time. They walked home with 
me; about three quarters of an hour, but a balmy 
night. 

For three days now I have had about half a day's 
work to do and I have enjoyed myself a great deal. I 
do like either to work my head off or to do nothing — 
I hate having just enough to do. The end of last week 
I worked my head off , so I was ready for this change; 
this afternoon I literally did nothing. 

To-morrow, Sunday, I am going to send off little 
packages to anciens blesses — things I did n't get off 
at Christmas because I could n't get any cigarettes 



126 ON DUTY AND OFF 

till just lately, and then from our Q. M. None of the 
French places have tobacco in any form. The lack of 
bread which you may have read of is apparently 
partly or mainly caused by lack of transportation 
facilities for flour and trains blocked by the snow. It 
is s^le comme tout underfoot — steady slush a couple 
of inches deep. 

January 23 
I don't believe I ever told you about Colonel D., 
did I? He works in an entirely different way from 
Colonel G., but seems to get there quite as well. He 
knows when to emphasize and when not to; is very 
easy-going in a way — very informal and friendly — 
and yet when he wants a thing put through he gets it 
done in double-quick order. He makes the most auda- 
cious requests of the C.A.S. and always gets his way. 
He is not content with sending a letter — he goes 
along with it and gets the answer. You hear him say 
over the telephone, "You can't disturb me," and it's 
true. He says: "Why get mad over a thing when you 
can get everything you want without?" He lacks G.'s 
chief virtues, but is a very good scout. 

Mary has gone back again to Bordeaux. Saturday 
she and Kenneth and P. Drinker and I went on a 
party: dined at Boeuf a la Mode and went to the 
Theatre Frangais. We had the most wonderful 
"pressed duck" at dinner. It was first brought in to 
us on a silver plate and introduced — "Alice, the 
duck — the duck, Alice" — then taken to a side ta- 
ble near by, where three men carved it and three 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 127 

more made a sauce of many good things in a chafing- 
dish, pouring on brandy and setting it all aflame, in 
the unique way they have here. The carcass, drum- 
sticks, etc., were then put into a silver cider-press and 
crushed, till all the juice ran out of a silver spigot into 
the silver chafing-dish — there to mix with the sauce 
and to receive the slices of duck. It was extraordinar- 
ily good ; but the best part was the reverential way in 
which the six men prepared it — their rapt attention 
to its welfare. The play was Abb6 Constantin and was 
perfect — the acting, the setting — everything beau- 
tifully done. We all simply loved it. As indicated 
above, I spent the night with Mary. 

Lippy went Thursday. Did I tell you, I wonder, 
about going to his house one evening and about the 
party his landlady, Madame Simonie, had for us? 
There was a little group of women out there at Passy 
who had a sort of sewing circle: Madame Simonie, 
Kenneth's landlady, Mac's landlady, and Madame 
Lethomme — a very spicy old dame who keeps a 
grocery shop and has a lovely, affectionate, but stu- 
pid niece. All was well until the advent of these vari- 
ous boys; but now the old ladies are ready to tear 
each other's eyes out and call each other every pos- 
sible name. The lovely Georgette and the boys have 
broken up the sewing circle. However, on Saturday I 
am going with Mac and Harry Harter, who now has 
Lippy's room, and Kenneth to Madame Simonie's in 
the evening. She lives very near the school where Peter 
Ibbetson went — we pass it on our way to Neuilly. 



128 ON DUTY AND OFF 

January 25 
This has been an almost painfully entrancing day. 
They all say Paris in spring really is something to 
dream of, but if it is more intoxicating than to-day I 
don't think I can stand it. When I left the house the 
fog was so thick you could n't see fifty yards, and 
during my forty- minute walk to the office I had every 
effect between that and a sunny day with blue sky 
overhead, though still fog below. By two o'clock, af- 
ter lunch, it was so lovely it almost hurt — creamy 
lights on the buildings and ravishing blue mists down 
the tree-arched avenues. We walked down by the 
river — way down right by the edge — and saw the 
towers of the Tuileries, and the trees on the banks, 
and the softly shining gold figures on the Pont Alex- 
andre, framed by the arches of the bridges. And we 
watched them build concrete river boats and peel off 
the wooden outsides, and — well, that's all, really, 
but the day just went to your head. Kenneth was on 
the top of the wave, probably because of a moonlight 
walk he took last night with " Pirie" a charming and 
bright, well-educated, and independent French girl 
who works in the file room where he does. She cer- 
tainly is a winner. 

Then at six we went to see a Mrs. Dodd, an Ameri- 
can who has been here seventeen years, and she told 
us about the wonderful face masks Mrs. Ladd is mak- 
ing for face cases — of bronze, almost as light as 
aluminum, painted. One man saw his mask and said: 
"Mais, Madame, c'est — moi!" I am going to her 
studio some day on the strength of living next door at 



U.S. AIR SERVICE 129 

home, for it sounds thrilling; the face cases are so 
much worse than anything. Mrs. Dodd was extremely 
agreeable, entertaining and interesting — the kind of 
person who reads Tacitus twice through because it 
throws so much light on the war; Has read every- 
thing, knows everybody, goes everywhere, and ac- 
complishes a great deal in the way of good, solid work 
and lavish hospitality to friends and poilus alike. 

By the way, I am going to move in town some- 
where in the course of the next few weeks, in order 
not to have the lonely walk home at night. When I 
am settled I will cable my address. 

January 26 
At home and in bed after an evening chez Lippy's 
landlady, with five French girls and a French boy and 
three of our own boys. We went there after supper 
and walked all the way out by the river in the full 
moonlight — very misty below. The Eiffel Tower, 
shadowly outlined, so massive and so graceful, with 
the moon shining on the upper part, two or three big 
stars round its head, and a yellow street lamp with 
long reflection at its feet, was something to see. Look- 
ing back toward the city there was a yellowish tinge 
to sky and water and mist — more beautiful than I 
can say, though not so intoxicatingly so as yester- 
day's sun and mist. It was a lovely walk and a scene I 
shall never forget. I walked on the stone wall part of 
the way. It was entirely deserted, you know, like the 
depths of the country. 



130 ON DUTY AND OFF 

January 2'j 
Another enchanting day. Paris is certainly the 
most beautiful spot in the world. Came down to the 
office at about half-past ten, this being Sunday — 
worked till about half-past one and had a good 
lunch of rognons et choux de Bruxelle, which are such 
favorite dishes they are apt to be all gone by the time 
we get there. Then we crossed the Seine and walked 
down the left bank, regarding the most exquisite 
scene — the most alluring — possible. I wish I could 
describe it adequately, but I can't. It was all golden 
mist, with creamy buildings and bridges and river 
walls rising from mirror-like flat swirls of greeny, 
bluey, and gold water — occasionally a great pile of 
yellow sand on the quai to accentuate the yellows and 
browns in the water. The lines of the bridges and the 
way they are "stream-lined," as it were, to meet the 
walls, is marvellous — nothing on the dead level, but 
always a slight rise or fall. All along the bank were 
men of every age with enormously long fishing-poles, 
and just after Kenneth had bet me untold sums that 
no one would catch anything and I had failed to take 
him up, we actually saw a good-sized, white, un- 
healthy-looking fish brought up. The whole scene was 
idyllic, with a kind of unreality about it that made 
you wonder whether you had not been already trans- 
lated. Crossed the river and walked up through the 
Tuilieries Gardens, where the children's sailboats 
were all becalmed on the great round ponds, just the 
way and at just the hour we get becalmed at Cotuit. 



CHAPTER IV 

" BOMBED LAST NIGHT, 
BOMBED THE NIGHT BEFORE' 

January 31 

As it will all be in the paper in glowing terms, I might 
as well give you my account of the taste of bomb- 
dropping we got last night. I was waked up, to my dis- 
gust, by the siren of alarm, but as we have heard it 
many a time, I went at once to sleep again, and was 
again roused from deep sleep by a voice saying over 
and over in my ear, **Les Gothas sont la, Elisabeth; 
faut descendre a la cave." It was too cruel. I had 
a dim feeling that this was no time to argue, so I 
dressed almost completely, vaguely trying to remem- 
ber whether this was like a fire and you tried to save 
things, and finally did put on my best suit and Cousin 
Ida's leather jacket and my hat and new watch, 
and straggled out into the dining-room — to find, of 
course, every one else in wrappers and coats and 
boudoir caps. I also found that Madame Henri 
thought it ridiculous to go down cellar, and, indeed, 
Suzanne and the children came back after they had 
gone halfway down. So then I took off half my things 
and went back to bed. By that time I was awake 
enough to hear the noises, but had no idea they were 
so near — they might have been anywhere. There 
was a dull boom regularly, which turned out to be the 
anti-aircraft guns; then, also quite regularly, but in 



132 ON DUTY AND OFF 

groups, something like loud claps of thunder, which it 
seems was the forty bombs, and then once a series like 
pistol shots, which they say were pistol shots from a 
duel. It never occurred to me it was actually in Paris, 
but the next morning on my way in town I passed a 
house with the two upper stories entirely demolished. 
That gave me quite a different feeling about going 
down cellar — till I heard that this bomb had 
slanted down through part of that house into the 
cellar of the next, and then there did n't seem to be 
much to choose. S. claims that the centre of a broad 
street, as far as possible from collapsing walls, etc., is 
far safer than a house. So there you are. I guess the 
answer is, if you're hit you're hit, and if you're not, 
you're not. A French plane came down, apparently 
trying to land, in the Place de la Concorde, and was 
certainly a complete wreck. One of the men photo- 
graphed it to-day and showed me the print — says he 
will give me one. 

It is now quarter-past twelve, which is later than 
the performance last night, so I guess we'll not have 
one. One of the men picked up a tiny little German 
bomb which had struck a soft spot and had not ex- 
ploded. 

To-day Petit and Michel came down to lunch with 
me. Petit has- suddenly been evacuated to-day for 
Lyons, which is near his home. So we have said a ten- 
der farewell and I have promised to go there on my 
way home. 

Good-night; it is late. I worked to-night, but do 
not imagine that is tiring — quite the reverse, the 



PARIS BOMBED 133 

atmosphere is so festive there in the evening. At six 
o'clock I was tired and rather blue; at eleven I felt as 
fresh as a daisy and gay as a grasshopper. 

February 5 
To-day I worked till about eight on something for 
Dana. It is a joy to work for him, for he dictates 
slowly and uses English that is both correct and elo- 
quent; when you write it out you can just rattle 
ahead as fast as your fingers can go. 

We have all changed rooms again. At present 
Doris and I are alone in our glory in a large, empty 
room, which is quite a relief. We have plenty of visi- 
tors to keep us from getting bored and yet some 
peace and quiet. I make the poor child let me keep 
one big French window wide open all the time, so we 
are as snug as a T.B. ward. By to-morrow Colonel D. 
will have returned from a little trip to our Head- 
quarters, and then I expect we shall learn whether the 
C.A.S. has been able to fix it up with J. J. P. for us 
to stay in Paris. I shall be furious if I have to leave 
just when spring is coming and when I am moving in 
town to be near my work and other distractions. 

I tell you frankly je commence a languir. For six 
months I was all right except for very rare days, but 
for a month now I have felt the call of home strongly. 
. . . But I could n't bear to leave everything still going 
on here; I Ve got to wait and see the thing out — see 
how all our plans materialize. So I guess I 'm here till 
the end. There are always those who think the end 
will be in a few months. 



134 ON DUTY AND OFF 

To-morrow night we are going to Mrs. Dodd*s for 
tea and she is going to give us hot corn -cake and but- 
ter! Ingredients provided by P. Drinker. 

Colonel G. came up the other day and bade us a 
final farewell. He has gone to G.H.Q. as a member of 
the General Staff. So that chapter is finished, and I 
can say without hesitation that it (meaning by it the 
little office I first came to) was one of the most inter- 
esting experiences of my long life. I begin to suspect 
it was quite as much R. D. S. as E. S. G. that made 
it so. D. has got an extraordinary brain; I think that 
sometime in the next few months I'll get into his 
office. 

February 12 
Kenneth has really left Aviation and goes to the 
Artillery School at Fontainebleau Saturday. 

Well, as you will have gathered from my wedding- 
day cable Mary L. and I have taken a room together, 
and I hope we shall be able to live harmoniously. 
I think we shall, although we apparently differ on 
almost every detail of our mode of life — she pre- 
ferring the stable and more conventional and I the 
easier and more entertaining. But we can each do as 
she wishes. Address is 18 rue du Cirque. It is where 
Cousin Richard lives — a sort of cross between pen- 
sion and hotel. 

February 17 
Just back from **Tosca." When we got out every 
one was running, and behold there was a raid on. 



PARIS BOMBED 135 

You don't know how pretty the French planes are — 
great yellow "flying stars," or yellow with two tiny 
red tips, or just the two red tips alone, sailing through 
the moonlit starry heavens. The red ones are the tiny 
lights on the wing tips: We went for the Metro and 
stood at the entrance, in the Place de rOp6ra, watch- 
ing the planes and the silvery flashes of shrapnel from 
the anti-aircraft guns, and listening to words of com- 
fort from strange Australians. The Australians are 
certainly attractive — so very big and clean-cut and 
often handsome, with genial faces; they are about 
the most attractive set here. Well, the anti-aircraft 
guns boomed away; after a while we went into the 
Metro (which did n't marche, of course) and waited 
till we got sick of it, and by the time we had fought 
our way out the raid was over. No bombs were 
dropped (so far as I heard) while we were outside, but 
I thought I heard three while we were in the Metro. 

I don't know whether or not I have hitherto suc- 
cessfully camouflaged the fact that I was witnessing 
a drama of the heart. At all events, on Friday came 
the oflicial betrothal of Kenneth and Pirie, a French 
girl of whom I have certainly written. She is a very 
nice child and the two seem devoted to each other. 
Kenneth has been at Fontainebleau about four days 
and misses her fearfully, naturally. He is so young! 

February 20 
Mary and I are quite respectably settled in a good- 
sized room with an open fireplace where we are going 
to have a fire to-night when Louisa and Nora come to 



136 ON DUTY AND OFF 

dinner. Cousin Richard and Dr. Wright have the 
room over ours and R. C. C.'s secretary and a clinic 
worker have the one over that. They four have a fire 
in one of the rooms every night and read aloud and at 
ten o'clock have tea. I went up for tea the other night 
when Mary was out for the evening. 

Yesterday I rode way over the city on M.*s bicycle 
to see Dana Skinner, who has been having an opera- 
tion, and back again in an incredibly short time. I 
think I shall have to hire a bicycle. 

Yesterday I said farewell to Kenneth, which cost 
me a pang. He has grown a good deal older in these 
past weeks of experience. He is now a second-class 
private in the French Army, enrolled in the Legion 
Etrangere. The course at Fontainebleau will take 
three months or more and we will hope for the beauti- 
ful impossible by that time. I do like Pirie very much ; 
she is a jeune personne tres serieuse in spite of great 
gayety and fetching ways. 

... As for food, I am sure you are abstaining more 
than we. On the other hand, there must be something 
wrong with our food here, for we want to eat all the 
time and discuss meals past and meals to come all the 
rest of the time. Here is a very slightly exaggerated 
day: 7.15, breakfast; 8.45, prepare Kenneth's lunch; 
II, eat Kenneth's lunch; 12, a little chocolate; some- 
time during the morning, Lieutenant B. sends an 
orderly to Quartermaster for cornmeal, etc., and has 
the stuff taken to Mrs. Dodd's; 1.30, lunch, including 
shredded wheat left to us as a legacy; 4, a little tea; 
6, Mrs. Dodd's, where we have corn-cake and more 



PARIS BOMBED 137 

tea; 7.30, dinner; back to the office, and at 10, while 
waiting for the Colonel, Mac and I (by way of a ter- 
rific spree — which it is, on account of the liquid) re- 
tire to the pantry and eat puffed rice and milk; 12, 
Mary and I sit down opposite each other and sol- 
emnly discuss the pressed duck we had at dinner, 
eating a bit of Dot chocolate the while. You certainly 
would be disgusted at us. The feeling comes in 
waves, and for me this present wave reached its 
height yesterday in a birthday tea in S.'s office — he 
himself absent in the hospital, but his secretary and 
three junior liaison officers present. I had three birth- 
day parties, the best of them being night before last 
when I took George J. out to dinner and then we went 
home and joined Mary in front of our open fire, 
where we had coffee and then cakes and strawberry 
cordial contributed by George. I never saw George 
looking so well and strong. He is an honorary chas- 
seur and wears the dark-blue b6ret and also a Croix 
de Guerre fouragere, his section being the only one 
that can. 

My poor Father, I want to break it to you gently 
that I shall never do the glorious deeds you would 
like me to. I shall be fond of my family and friends 
and try to make life pleasant for them, but as to re- 
forming or even informing the world, I'm afraid I 
have n't it in me. And it is true here and now, too ; if 
any one says to me in years to come, "What did you 
do in the Great War?" I shall say, ''I fed Kenneth 
Gaston when he was losing weight " — and let it go at 
that. I know I 'm an awful disappointment to you, 



138 ON DUTY AND OFF 

but it can't be helped. I really can't come back and 
rehabilitate France. . . . 

This is Sunday morning and I am on call in the 
office, but as you see I have not an enormous amount 
to do. I did, however, take notes on a conference be- 
tween three of our men and three Frenchmen. The 
French certainly look well-set-up in their black uni- 
forms with gold braid and gold buttons and a broad 
red strip down the trouser leg, and soft laced boots to 
the knee. 

The Champs Elys6es at night is fascinating, for all 
the street lights are green and the bicycles, tip-carts 
and so forth carry red Jap lanterns; the ordinary 
taxi lights look almost orange. 

February 25 
I started out this morning feeling very down on 
my luck, walked over to the river, and the whole 
world changed like a flash. This is another of the ex- 
quisite, radiant days we had a month ago — the first 
since then — and gives me the same thrill. On a day 
like this I could joyfully stay in Paris forever. I am 
now out on the balcony in the glorious sun, and if you 
were all with me I should be perfectly happy. 

Don't delude yourself into thinking I am doing any 
administrative work. I am doing just straight stenog- 
raphy. 

Anyhow, it's a glorious day. I walked down low by 
the river and watched them screening the yellow 
sand and building concrete boats, and saw the barges 
going by getting their decks washed off by the barge- 



PARIS BOMBED 139 

men. Eiffel Tower just visible on the left bank and 
the turrets of the Trocadero on the right. 

February 26 
I have just finished a lovely birthday party in al- 
most every room of the cinquieme etage, with that 
delicious, galumptious chocolate cake ! First the Colo- 
nel got a couple of pieces which he ate in the hall on 
his way down to see the General ; then the other two 
girls and a stray visitor in my room; then down to 
S.'s room, where he and two secretaries and a very 
nice Mr. Baldwin, whom I call Grandfather because 
he is almost as old as I, and Mr. Gouverneur Pauld- 
ing, a Brookline boy, who said it was just like going 
to a coming-out tea in Boston, and Mr. Morton, a 
Florentine American of twenty-one years, S., and I 
had lots with our tea; then down the hall to where 
Sylvia is — she has never been to America, but knows 
so much about Boston that when I said the cake 
was n't home-made she said at once, ** Union, I sup- 
pose, then" — and Mr. Guillaume, a very nice Swiss 
interpreter; then Pirie and a Miss Faive and Kathryn 
D. from the file room, and finally Mary, who had her 
piece and also licked all the frosting off the paper. So 
you see it did a good job. Every one who did n't come 
from Boston said they had never tasted a cake so 
good, and those who did ate it with a sentimental ex- 
pression quite up to standard. It really is in an en- 
tirely different class from any cake you can possibly 
get here anywhere, at any price. Thank you very 
much. 



140 ON DUTY AND OFF 

March i 
How humorous and pleasant to think of Jamie as a 
lieutenant with a mustache ! The instant he gets his 
uniform he must se f aire photographic for my benefit. 
Last night Pirie came to supper and we had a 
pleasant evening in front of the fire, discussing their 
plans for the future and her past experiences. I like 
her thoroughly: she is very sweet and fine and de- 
voted heart and soul to Kenneth. 

Here is another ''Day with the American Army" 

— it was yesterday: 8.50, met the Colonel going out 
as I came in — on his way to Versailles and Chartres 
for the day; 9-9.20, copied two telegrams; 9.20, set- 
tled myself in the Colonel's office, wrote a couple of 
letters, and read *'A Student at Arms*' that J. gave 
me at Christmas — I found it immensely interesting; 
1. 1 5, Michel came and we had a long lunch together 

— he is going back to 'TAmericain" for an "opera- 
tion quelconque" on his leg; 245, settled myself again 
in the Colonel's room and finished **A Student at 
Arms." Commander S. and Commander G. came in, 
and while they were waiting for the Colonel the 
former told various amusing stories about the begin- 
ning of the war, — told them very well, in his weird 
English accent. I then had tea with Sylvia and others 

— a real feast this time, for her chief came into the 
pantry and presented us with a box of chocolates. 
Came back and read a bit more. About six Major B. 
came in to wait for the Colonel, and from then on 
till half-past seven he recounted the story of his life, 
and that is always interesting. Went home to dinner; 



PARIS BOMBED 141 

telephoned to the office at nine and at ten to see 
if the Colonel had come back and wanted me — he 
hadn't. Bed; end. Oh, it's an arduous life. I will say, 
however, that a day or two later I worked from ten at 
night to one in the morning. 

My grapenuts come regularly and give me a deli- 
cious breakfast instead of a horrid one — especially 
now when restaurants, pensions, etc., are not allowed 
to serve butter. 

191 Rue de V University 
March 4 

What will you say when you hear we are moving 
again? Mary felt, and I have no doubt rightly, that 
it was very stupid of us to be living in a pension that 
was practically a hotel for Americans. This is a place 
where Dorothea and her mother and the Cottons 
have stayed at various times, and was also recom- 
mended to Mary by her friend the Marquise de Viv- 
ier at Bordeaux. There are quite a lot of people living 
here, men and women, all French except Miss Eloise 
Derby, and as it is supposed to be an ultra-select 
place we may make some entertaining acquaintances. 
We have two nice little rooms, in the least attractive 
of which we are going to sleep and keep the other for a 
sitting-room ; they are prettily furnished, with chintz 
coverings instead of plush. 

Yesterday, Sunday, we had a most excellent day. 
We took the train to Meudon-Val-Fleury and then 
walked up a little village street into the woods. It was 
misting slightly and had snowed about two inches; 



142 ON DUTY AND OFF 

everything was slush and mud, but the woods were 
lovely. We left the road and went straight uphill to a 
little promontory where you could sit on a slush- 
covered rock and look off over a wooded valley and 
little hills. The trees were all laden with snow, and the 
sky was rather a lovely yellowish color round the 
horizon. Coming down into the valley again we found 
a darling little dark-gray pond. Then we proceeded 
through the woods until we met a little encampment 
of soldiers and decided we had better go in the op- 
posite direction, which we did, followed by shouts 
and hoots, until we got round a corner, when we ran 
just as hard as we possibly could, do^vnhill, slipping 
and falling. Of course they did n't follow us, and I 
still believe we should have gone calmly on our way; 
however. Thence we went back to a village and I 
went into a hospital and paid a short call on two 
anciens bless6s. We wandered round and finally 
mounted high on the hill again, this time on an enor- 
mously high- walled terrasse, falling off at one end to a 
beautiful formal garden over which you looked to 
distant wooded hills — chateau at the right, dating 
back some way and then demolished and rebuilt by 
Louis XIV; now used as an observatory and wireless 
station. All round the chateau were great bushes of 
something like rhododendrons, only with bigger, 
shiny leaves — very beautiful. Lots of other flower- 
ing bushes and a magnificent old cedar, reminding me 
of a certain spot in the Ruffoli garden at Ravello. 

And I do wish you were here to-day to bask in the 
sunshine! It is a perfect summer day. At lunch-time 



PARIS BOMBED 143 

Mary and I each took a slab of cheese and a little bag 
of figs and walked down along the river to the Quai 
aux Fleurs, near Notre Dame — it really is too en- 
chanting : the whole sidewalk for about a block is laid 
out just like a flower garden — solid flowers and little 
new plants of every sort ; about every fifteen feet the 
gardens are separated by a clump of trees, shrubs, 
vines, etc., their roots very inadequately packed in 
burlaps. I made up a lovely box to put on the balcony 
outside the office — right by my desk, almost : two or 
three yellow primrose plants, a whitish one, a dark 
crimson one, two violet plants, two purple and one 
cherry- colored Roman anemone, and two English 
daisies with flowers an inch and a half across. My 
arms are so tired from carrying it even a few blocks 
from the car that I can hardly write. 

March 8 
(Eveningj at the office.) 

It's a funny thing about being afraid of raids — 
theoretically I am, but practically I'm not. There's 
one going on at this moment. I have been out on the 
balcony for the last hour with half a dozen youths. 
Quite near the beginning I actually saw a bomb — it 
was right down the street, apparently, though doubt- 
less a good way off, and it looked like a small sun on a 
foggy day — a round orange ball. The others I heard 
and saw the flare from, but nothing more. After about 
an hour it all quieted down, but now the bombs seem 
to be dropping thick and fast. We are in an inner 
room, where on sufferance we can have a light, and I 



144 ON DUTY AND OFF 

am theoretically taking dictation from the Colonel. 
Mac has just gone out to see if there *s anything 
worth looking at from the balcony — there is n*t. 

There is no doubt about it, Mary takes a more in- 
telligent interest in the war than I do — so I ought to 
learn something. She knows a good deal of French 
history, too, and I think under her influence I may 
read ''A Tale of Two Cities" and either Carlyle's or 
Belloc's " French Revolution" — probably the latter. 

They do keep this raid up in the most tedious way. 
It is now two and a half hours or more since they 
started. The alerte sounded just after I had started to 
come over here. I am glad I continued to come, for 
apart from the fact that I was due to work it is much 
more social here than alone in the boarding-house — 
Mary being out. 

Raid called off just three hours after it began. 

Sunday y March lo 
Yesterday was the most glorious, golden day imag- 
inable — a baking sun — the kind of day when you 
simply must lie on the grass, so we did. Mary had to 
work in the morning, and I unpacked and then went 
to church. We met after lunch and took a car out 
to Malmaison — which she insisted on our going 
through. Then we went up through the Fondation 
Cognac, an ex-convent — not so **ex" but what there 
was a nun walking up and down the walled alley. 
We cared nought for her, however, but climbed the 
wall and dropped down the other side into a ploughed 
field on top of a hill from which you could see every- 



PARIS BOMBED 145 

thing in the world bathed in sunlight. There were 
various other grassy hills, very steep, with deep little 
valleys between them, with strips of ploughed field in 
rays down the hillside, alternating with rays of apple 
trees — the very tops of the hills wooded. We lay on 
a bank in the sun for some time, then spotted the 
Eiffel Tower afar and decided to make for it in a bee- 
line, and you have no idea how well that plan suc- 
ceeded. For almost an hour it led us across hilltop 
pastures between apple, pear, and peach orchards, 
and vegetable gardens with currant and gooseberry 
bushes. A little later in the season it will be truly 
ravissant. We are going to take C. Morse out there 
for a picnic next Sunday. Of course we got in late and 
had to take cars and taxis to reach the Eiffel Tower 
and eat our supper in a cab, in order to get to the 
theatre in time. The show was "M. Alphonse," by A. 
Dumas, and was exceedingly well acted. I had read 
it beforehand, so I could understand as well as if it 
were in English. 

We certainly have fallen on our feet this time in 
the way of a living place. There are about twenty-five 
people of every age from four to seventy, lots of old 
ladies — all of them countesses and marquises — 
men and girls and one or two. young boys. They all 
talk very vivaciously at dinner-time and know each 
other very well, most of them having lived there a 
year or so. Several of them are refugies of Belgium, 
Soissons, etc. I talked with one little Belgian count- 
ess, and the first thing she wanted to know was 
whether I had ever read ''Four Days," by Hetty 



146 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Hemenway ! So I showed her the picture of Hope and 
the children and that was very exciting. Well, the 
next thing she wanted to know was if I had ever read 
the ''Wild Olive" — and that, you know, is all in the 
region of Westport and Giant. So I told her that. 
Was n't that curious? I think it will be good fun 
hearing them all talk. The food is simply delicious 
and passed round in big dishes as many times as you 
like — and unlimited sweet cider. The only real flaw 
so far discovered is that the water runs out of the tub 
so slowly as to make it almost impossible for two peo- 
ple to take a bath the same day. 

I am getting awfully tired of these air raids! If I 
work late twice a week and amuse myself twice a 
week and have raids all the other nights I shall never 
get any sleep. C. Morse seems to be our allotted com- 
panion for such occasions — the last raid he was with 
Mary and they sat for hours on the subway platform 
with their legs dangling over the edge, and this time 
he had just come to call when the alerte came. We 
sat in our "salon" for an hour or more and made 
cocoa, and then when two bombs were dropped that 
really sounded as if they were in our street (they 
were n't), we went down to the cave where many of 
the others were. They say, however, that the second 
floor, where we are, is the very best place, for a bomb 
striking the top of the house does not usually get 
as low as that, and a bomb going off in the court 
or street doesn't go as high. Mary thinks under 
a bridge would be good, but I don't know that it 
would be worth while to get pneumonia. It certainly 



PARIS BOMBED 147 

gives you a queer feeling to sit conversing in front 
of the fire awaiting your own special bomb. I sup- 
pose we shall do the same to-night — botheration 
take them! 

March 14 
Went out to the hospital and stopped a minute to 
see a blesse I had not seen since October, and the 
change was marvellous. His lower jaw had been shot 
through from side to side, with loss of bony sub- 
stance, so that he had to wear a rubber bandage to 
hold the jaw up, was on the softest of soft food and 
could hardly make himself understood. One at a time 
they have grafted both sides, and now he talks 
perfectly clearly, and yesterday began to eat all kinds 
of food just like any one else. He is n't remarkably 
good-looking, as the two grafted places stick out 
more or less and give him a squirrel-like look, but he 
is n't in the slightest degree unpleasant-looking and 
will look much better some time, I have no doubt. 
The surgeon considers him a very interesting case 
and shows him off to all visiting doctors. I believe a 
groove was cut both sides of the fracture and an inset 
of bone slipped in, the bit of bone being taken from 
his leg. He, naturally^ is as pleased as punch and has 
been so happy at the hospital that he is in no hurry to 
be evacuated. 

I am sitting in front of the most aesthetic arrange- 
ment of flowers you ever sighed over — a brown jug 
with two nice little rudimentary handles — filled 
with Roman anemones in all kinds of purples and 



148 ON DUTY AND OFF 

purply pinks, and then freesia, cream just tinted with 
mauve, as if they were reflecting the others — the 
whole (by chance) against a coffee-colored pongee 
background. Really about a perfect color scheme to 
my way of thinking. I have n't mentioned green, but 
there is plenty in the freesia leaves and buds. Speak- 
ing of flowers, coming through the Champs Elysees 
to-day I found a great bed of rhododendrons in full 
blossom — clear light rose-color. Does n't that seem 
incredible on March 14th? 

Colonel G. has pneumonia at G.H.Q. We sent him 
some flowers the other day and Colonel D. wrote a 
verse to go with them, on the way up and down stairs 
from one conference to another. Colonel D. is a great 
worker, but never allows himself to get intense or 
worried, not even to-day when for two eternally long 
minutes we thought all the papers on our air pro- 
gramme for the next three months had been removed 
from his desk by alien hands. 

March 20 
I don't know whether I have mentioned Jean de 
Marguenat, a count, an ex-aviateur and our chauf- 
feur. We see a good deal of him because he waits up 
in our room. He is twenty-one, tall, and very good- 
looking, with the most absurdly expressive face that 
ever was. He is so different from an American boy of 
that age in the way he registers emotion. The other 
day he came in, in the depths of gloom, flung him- 
self into a chair and pulled out a paper for us to see 
which proved to be his orders to start that very 



PARIS BOMBED 149 

night to report to his air d6p6t at Lyons. He was 
really tragic about it, and stamped up and down the 
room with clenched fists, muttering about the ways 
of the Army. Half an hour later the Colonel came out 
and went with him to the Ministere de la Guerre, got 
it fixed up in ten minutes, and came back — the child 
all beaming smiles, shaking every one's hand and pos- 
itively jumping over the chairs in excitement. Oh, 
these French ! 

I don't know where my recital of facts stopped. 
Sunday Mary and C. Morse and I went out and 
lunched on the grassy pasture hilltop over Malmai- 
son. After lunch I strolled partway down the hill to 
call on Michel who was back in bed again. I went 
sneakered and hatless, which made me feel very 
much at home. I wandered into the empty hospital 
and peeked round till I found Michel, who was 
pleased and surprised to see me. I had a very nice call 
on him. A Sister came in, all in black with veil, etc., 
and her skirt tucked up, carrying a mop and scrub- 
bing-pail — it seemed such a quaint costume for the 
housemaid. 

March 25 
You are just having your worst weather now, I 
imagine, and here we are having cloudless days al- 
most as warm as summer. The "Dambosch" seem to 
find them perfect days, too, for the following has been 
our schedule: Friday (March 22), alerte at nine in the 
evening — call-off at about ten and nothing doing. 
Saturday, alerte at nine in the morning — no bombs, 



150 ON DUTY AND OFF 

but a coup de canon about every twenty minutes, 
which proved to be (as you will have read) the great 
240 cannon firing from over seventy miles away and 
dropping shells as neatly as you could wish. This 
kept up till six (making it very inconvenient, as they 
stopped the Metro trams, etc. I almost missed my 
train). At nine came another air raid alerte, but it 
amounted to nothing and was called off at ten. The 
next morning at seven the cannon began again and 
continued till about three. An air raid was sounded 
at one o'clock at night (the French putting up a 
barrage, so it sounded as if it were going to amount 
to something) and called off about two. This morn- 
ing the cannon started at quarter of seven, but only 
fired four times — I don't know why. The Germans 
certainly are smarter than we — they always do it 
first. 

But the raid did not prevent the river in full moon- 
light from being very lovely, as witnessed by Mary 
and C. Morse and me from under the Pont de I'Alma; 
the arches are so lovely. We sat on one steamer rug 
and under another, leaning comfortably against a rail 
of some sort and eating Page and Shaw. Nor did 
the cannonading prevent Fontainebleau from being 
about perfect. I took a noon train (having made up 
my mind to lose it when I found the Metro stopped, 
but finally- getting a taxi), reached Fontainebleau 
about two — a heavenly, warm, sunny day. I left my 
bag and coat at the hotel and wandered down 
through the old part of the town, among the darling 
little moss-grown cottages and garden walls — past a 



PARIS BOMBED 151 

wash-house where apparently all the wash of the 
town was being done in a small swimming-tank of 
cold water — across some fields and up into the 
woods. I looked in vain for wild jonquils and English 
primroses, such as I had seen in masses through the 
woods from the train window. But I did find violets 
and anemones, and a wonderful old woman sitting on a 
bank at a crossing of wood paths, knitting a white 
stocking and watching her goat, which she assured me 
was very, very young and yet was to have a goatlet 
in two weeks and had therefore to be watched care- 
fully. So she spends all day in the woods, knitting and 
chatting with every one who passes. Yesterday a wild 
pig, bigger than her goat, came rushing past. She had 
brought the goat up since it was six days old and was 
as fond of it as a baby. I lay down beside her and she 
talked a steady stream for half an hour. It was so 
quiet and delicious! There is nothing to beat a baking 
spring sun. 

Then I went over to Kenneth's caserne and met 
him as he came out of class. My, it was good to see 
the child again! We climbed a sharp little hill to a 
cliff which looked down on the long, narrow field, 
where they learn to shoot. Some class was practising 
barrage fire and we could see the flash, flash, flash, 
flash, flash — about as fast as that — then the five 
bangs and way down at the other end of the field five 
little puffs of white smoke in a row, where the shells 
land. It was an interesting sight, but I did n*t like it a 
bit. It was the reallest thing I have heard or seen yet 
— it kept on so steadily and was so horribly precise. 



152 ON DUTY AND OFF 

So then we came down the hill and through the 
woods and the Chateau Pare and found a little res- 
taurant for supper, where we were the only people. 
Kenneth had to leave at nine to get back to the bar- 
racks, and I took a car home and went early to bed. 
The air was so good — so different from Paris ! My 
room opened on to a grassy court with trees sur- 
rounded by an old wall, all moss-grown, and just the 
other side of that was the Forest, so it was real coun- 
try all right. 

Kenneth appeared the next morning and we had 
a delicious breakfast in a far, sunny corner of the 
garden, and then went down to meet Pirie and sup- 
posedly Mary and C. M. — neither of whom ap- 
peared, however, — Mary, because the Metro was 
stopped and he presumably because he was on duty. 
So I had a morning alone in the Forest. I do enjoy 
wandering round by myself, going hither and yon, 
stopping or proceeding at my own sweet will! I saw 
a ledge with big pine trees on it, rather like William 
James* Ledges, and made for that. It was all it 
should have been: sunny and sweet-smelling, the 
ground all soft with thick moss and heather, and a 
lovely view off over tree-tops of soft pinky- browns 
and greens, with blue hills farther. Later I went 
through some beautiful open beech and holly woods, 
rather like Canaumet, only somewhat bigger trees and 
more cleared out ; then through some dull (except for 
anemones as far as you could see) flat woods, and 
down to the river to a little restaurant where I met 
Pirie and K. and Hayden Goodspeed (Harvard *i6, 



PARIS BOMBED 153 

A. A., Aviation and Artillery School) for lunch. It 
was about the prettiest place I have ever been to — 
a little inn, with barns and gardens, all of plaster 
and moss-grown, an airy kitchen with old oak tables 
with carved legs, and a little terrace at the back, flush 
with the grass and only about ten feet from the river ; 
across the river a great green field and square white 
'farmhouse and woods behind. I never saw a prettier 
scene; and here we sat and ate fried fishlets right 
from the river and lapins saut6s, which is the French 
Sunday roast beef, and the sun shone and the barges 
went up and down the river. It was utterly tranquil. 
After lunch Hayden and I left the lovers and took 
quite a long walk through the Forest — along some 
ridges that were for all the world like the long top of 
Colvin ; got many wonderful views over wooded val- 
leys, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. When I got 
back to the hotel about six, I found Mary had come 
on the later train, arriving at one! So she was alone 
all the afternoon. Was n*t that a shame? She got so 
mad with the Huns for firing on Paris and with the 
Parisians for paying any attention to them that she 
made up her mind to come down anyway. One funny 
thing she did was to make friends with a little boy at 
the Chateau whose mother let her in to the oldest 
part of the Chateau, which is being used as a neuro- 
logical hospital, and she knew all about Father! Mary 
is going to introduce me next time. She discovered a 
beautiful white bathtub at my hotel and has decided, 
therefore, to spend many Sundays there. Do you 
know, on the strength of our "Workers' Permits" 



154 ON DUTY AND OFF 

saying that we are attached to the A.E.F., we get 
quarter rates on trains! I went down and back, sec- 
ond-class, for two and a half francs, an hour and a 
half each way. 

March 28 
On Monday next I start working in Dana's office. 
He is in charge of that part of the Liaison Bureau 
which conducts the passage of all Air Service affairs 
concerning the French Government, which are, of 
course, legion. It is finally as settled as anything is in 
the Army that our part of the Air Service will stay in 
Paris. Colonel D. is CO. of the Paris Branch — the 
part of Supply that is here, the orders from the 
French, etc., as well as the Technical Section which, 
however, has a rather secondary place now. The de- 
livery of planes is the chief thing now. This means, 
primarily, deciding what planes we want, working 
out terrifically detailed lists of spare parts, equip- 
ment, armament, etc., ordering the squadrons and 
planes. ... As there are a thousand difficulties at 
each step it is some job. 

... I can't tell you how glad I am' for my own sake 
that you are not here during raids ; it is very quieting 
not to have a single person to worry about. Of course 
there will be people at the front later. ... As for 
raids, statistically there is more chance of being run 
over than hit by a bomb. 

March 29 
No special news, except that the news from the 
front is better. We hope the Germans will break 



PARIS BOMBED 155 

themselves in this offensive. American Red Cross 
MiHtary Hospital No. i is filling rapidly. 

April 8 
I 'm afraid I have n*t written for over a week. I 
have gone into Lieutenant Skinner's office and no 
longer have time to write in office hours. I certainly 
do enjoy being back again with R. D. S. He is in 
charge of liaison with the French, as I doubtless told 
you. I sit in his office and there are two more liaison 
offices opening out of it. Major Gros is the head; then 
there is Mr. Baldwin for Italian and Mr. Morton for 
French (under Dana), and at present that's all — 
work with the English going through Flight Com- 
mander Sassoon. 

Yesterday was Sunday, and Mary, C. Morse, and I 
went out of town on the trolley, and up on to a high 
orcharded hill from which you looked off across won- 
derful blue distances way below or at near-by hills and 
orchards covered with blossoming plum and occa- 
sionally a row of pink, pink peach. All shades of green 
in the world were there, too — just little hints of 
them ; mostly it was blue and white and pink. It was 
a beautiful northwest day, clouds racing over and 
bright sun, except for a couple of smart showers 
which struck us a,s we lay on our backs after lunch. 

Saturday night C. Morse came in here just back 
from Noyon and all round there — Blerancourt, es- 
pecially — where he had been evacuating people and 
things. He certainly was feeling low about the ad- 
vance. He said how wonderful the French were; 



156 ON DUTY AND OFF 

what great staying power they had. He admires them 
greatly as soldiers. He is going to the Artillery School 
at Fontainebleau the end of the week. 

April 12 
While I am waiting for the morning meeting to be- 
gin I can add a few words. Mary and I alternate in 
'* taking" the meetings, and they are sometimes very 
amusing. The head or representative of each depart- 
ment reports what's been doing in the last twenty- 
four hours ; about sixteen or twenty departments. . . . 
The cannon has begun again this afternoon, after a 
rest of nearly a week. An obus came down nearer me 
than any has yet, though not near enough to see. It 
was near the Ministere de la Guerre — at least I was 
and it must have been. It sounds quite different from 
a bomb, which is like a roll of thunder when you 
think the tree just outside your window has been 
struck — that sort of tearing noise. The obus sounds 
as if a huge drum had burst: quite a short, almost 
musical sound. • 

April 1$ 
This attack seems to have been the final word to 
show every one how fine a soldier the Frenchman 
makes. I have heard so many people remark on it. 
The last was Bob Boiling, who is jiist back from a 
few days near the front. He said the French were all 
so perfectly calm and alert, so well-set-up and so 
clean in effect even when they had just come from the 
trenches. 



PARIS BOMBED 157 

Last night we had a raid — the first for some time. 
Mary and I started for under the Pont de TAlma, but 
heard men's voices and beat a quick retreat, though 
they afterwards turned out to be Americans, who 
gave us (we joined other Americans on the bridge) 
some good close-harmony later. The raid was very 
short — three quarters of an hour or less — but the 
two or three bombs that were dropped did lots of 
harm. Paris is so huge that with all the bombs and 
shells that have come to us in the last month I have 
never been anywhere near one — not nearer than a 
seven or eight minutes' walk. There was a terrible 
picture in the paper to-day of a ward in a maternity 
hospital before and after a shell fell there a couple of 
days ago — horribly effective. , ; 

To-morrow is Sunday again, and Mary and I are 
going to try to reach the battle-field of the Mame. It 
has been in the Zone des Armees since last July and 
you are supposed to have a carnet rouge and a sauf 
conduit before you can get a ticket. But we are going 
to make a bluff at it and see if we get by. I have 
learned why one says, "He lies like a trooper." In the 
Army, as far as rules and that sort of stuff goes, you 
do what you want and say what you want, and if you 
get by it 's a glowing success and every one says what 
a fine, snappy person you are; if you don't get by, 
you are court-martialled. 

April 21 
Oh, I have worked so hard this past week! I love 
doing it, but it is so long since I have that I am 



158 ON DUTY AND OFF 

right tired. I went to take Doris's place one after- 
noon, when she did n't feel well, and came back that 
evening at ten and took dictation from the Colonel 
till quarter-past one. Then, of course, I had all 
those notes in addition to my regular work to finish 
up in the next couple of days. 

I can't describe to you how horrible the old siren is 
that sounds the alerte for raids. You hear it first in 
the distance — just an ordinary siren whistle; you sit 
up in bed (mentally, at least) and curse the Germans 
for breaking your sleep, and then perhaps (as we did 
last night) decide to stay in bed. The guns begin 
banging, but that is all right. One could go to sleep 
again with the guns and bombs banging, but not 
with the siren. As I said, you hear one first — it gets 
nearer and nearer and more and more frantic; and 
other sirens come nearer and nearer from other direc- 
tions, all whistling in slightly different keys, shriek- 
ing and howling and wailing, till it is 'like being sur- 
rounded .by a nightmare mob of banshees. (You know 
how the dear old banshees sound !) The whistles echo 
in the narrow streets of our quarter and get louder 
and more intense till it seems as if the world would 
burst with the sound. It is a queer thing — I still 
claim that I don't feel afraid, and yet if I am in bed 
and the siren comes, every tiniest muscle in my legs 
twitches. Mary goes to sleep far quicker than I under 
it, and yet she says she feels afraid. How do you ex- 
plain that? Am I really afraid and don't like to say 
so? I don't think so. 



PARIS BOMBED 159 

April 29 

I am longing for the time when the rest of you 
come abroad with me and I can show you all the 
spots I like best. 

We had about a perfect day yesterday with Q 
Morse at Fontainebleau. I left Paris on the eight 
o'clock train and was met down there by the other 
two. We walked almost steadily from about two till 
five, eating lunch on a cliff with a beautiful extended 
view — forest near at hand and then the fields and 
farmhouses on the other side of the Seine. It is the 
most perfect season, for every tree is its own individ- 
ual green — the oaks just barely pinkish, and the 
pines looking almost black by comparison with the 
exquisite pale green of the birches. Lots of beeches, 
too, half out — they grow in such a decorative form 
with their delicious, fuzzy edges. 

I picked lots and lots of purple Roman anemones, 
not quite like the ones in a florist's, more delicate, 
and they also have a silky fuzz when they are not full- 
blown. And those giant forget-me-nots that grow in 
the garden at Cotuit. . . . And tiny yellow primroses, 
more of the Chinese than the English variety. 

We had supper at the little restaurant on the river. 

When we spend the day in Fontainebleau we don't 
get home till ten, so you might think it was a long day ; 
but it is lovely enough and tranquil enough in the 
forest to make up for it. And I have about decided it 's 
all buncombe not to do things because they are tir- 
ing, or because you are tired. I don't think I ever 
told you how long hours I have sometimes worked. 



i6o ON DUTY AND OFF 

Once, for instance, till half-past two, beginning at 
half-past seven next morning; and quite often till 
twelve or one — several times later — and I have 
had no vacation, have done things in the evening 
quite a lot, and crowded Sundays about as full as I 
could, and I don't see that I am any the worse — ex- 
cept that I have gained weight. I am no more tired 
than I was when I worked half a day at Radcliffe. I 
have had a good many colds, but nothing bad enough 
to go to bed with. So there you are. I shall never let 
you tell me I am too tired to do something again. If I 
am tired I will go to the theatre in the evening; it*s 
the way, I think. 

I gave you a little dissertation, I think, on the bien 
€\ev6e French girl, and I will now add one further 
thought : in America, the better the family you come 
from, and the better educated and bred you are, the 
more unconventional things you can get away with; 
here, the higher class you are the more you are 
hemmed and bound in by rules that it would be 
tragic to break. Just little rules of convention, I 
mean. 

A week ago Sunday we went to Meaux and drove 
for hours over beautiful bare hills with the coldest 
wind you ever felt, making ninety miles an hour. It 
was a shame it was so cold, for the country was most 
lovely if one could have relaxed sufficiently to see it ; 
but you had to jam your head down into your collar 
and keep it there, to avoid dying of cold. I think I 
was never more chilled to the bone and the train was 
almost as cold coming home. But I was glad we went 



PARIS BOMBED 161 

and saw the dear little old-fashioned trenches they 
had there — about a foot and a half wide, neatly 
lined with willow basketry. The only time we were 
warm was when we were in the trenches! We drove 
through three or four little villages that had been 
shelled, though not badly, relatively speaking. Why 
the Germans ever turned back I can't imagine. (I 
neglected to state that this was the Marne battle- 
field — or at least a battle-field on the Marne, at the 
nearest point the Germans came to Paris. They call 
it the Battle of the Ourcq, or something like that.) 
It was beautiful country for a battle: miles and miles 
of rolling fields. But a miracle must have happened. 
I don't wonder that after that the French were con- 
vinced that we would win sometime. 

What fun it will be to have a picture of Jamie en 
militaire — and think of his returning salutes up and 
down the street! I hope he puts on lots of side and 
does it with real fervor. The dramatic side of uniforms 
and ceremony is the only advantage of them. 

Well, it seems as if Pirie and Kenneth were really 
going to get married May i8th; that is, they will if 
Kenneth gets the day off following his graduation 
and is not sent at once to the front. That is a Satur- 
day and they will not know till Monday of that week 
whether or not he can get to Paris ! If not, they will 
have to wait till he gets his first permission from the 
front. I do hope they won't have to, for he might 
never get it. He will be on the seventy-fives, and that 
is no joke, though, of course, not as bad as infantry. 
If he does get the day off, Pirie and her mother and 



i62 ON DUTY AND OFF 

sister-in-law, and Kenneth and Lippy and I will go 
first to the Mairie and have them really married, 
then to the American church. And that will be all! 
Not a very gay wedding, but neither of them cares a 
straw, so I don't know that it matters. They were 
planning to have more of a festivity, but decided to 
give it up. 

May I 
You know the people in this house have been so 
nice to Mary these two days she has been in the 
house. It about decided me to stay there next winter, 
if I am still here, instead of going to a hotel as I 
thought of doing on account of there being no chauf- 
f age central in the house. Not that I should plan to be 
sick, you know, but it would make all the difference 
if I were. Mademoiselle Guilhon is just as nice, at- 
tractive, and agreeable as she can be, with an excel- 
lently kept house and a care-free, happy-go-lucky at- 
titude toward it. Never seems to worry, though her 
population changes almost daily and she works hard 
outside at an oeuvre. Another of the boarders is simply 
delightful. She is a Madame de Noblemaire — about 
my age, I should say. The first couple of years of the 
war she nursed in Serbia and had the time of her life — 
the first time, I guess, that she had led a really free, 
independent life. She is one quarter English, and it 
shows very markedly in her attitude. She was brought 
up, I think, in India. Her spoken English is fluent 
but not very correct, and she has certain phrases 
which come out very amusingly: for instance, " Don't 



PARIS BOMBED 163 

you think that was horrid?" She recounted to us one 
evening many tales of her brother, an aviator of the 
R.F.C., who was captured by the Germans in No- 
vember, 1914, and was prisoner two years; trying 
unsuccessfully to escape once, being caught after 
many hours of flight through the snow, then going 
back to solitary confinement in a perfectly dark cell 
and almost no food ; finally really escaping in a pack- 
ing-case on a freight train in which he sat almost 
without moving, all bent over double, for three days 
and nights, and was finally unloaded in Switzerland. 
All this and more she told us, and after a particularly 
terrible detail she would say, "Don't you think that 
was horrid?" 

She also showed us pictures of Serbia and told us, 
with longing tones, about the difliculties of the work 
there — how there was no water to give the men even 
to drink, or how on other occasions the roof leaked so 
that a rainstorm would soak the patients to the skin ; 
how they had no conveniences; how she lived in a 
tent in the midst of this camp of men ; how good they 
all were to her. And this discourse she interlarded 
with ''Was n't it a lovely life?" She really is A No. i 
and I can't wait to get her to America. She has loads 
of spirit and snap and sense of humor. The other 
evening she was in bed with all the windows shut 
and confessed that she always slept so; then she 
burst into peals of laughter and said, "And all the 
afternoon I write how one must always sleep with the 
windows open." She is writing for the Red Cross, 
educational pamphlets for refugies. 



i64 ON DUTY AND OFF 

May 2 
To-day I have been with Mr. Diman to see a deco- 
ration at the Grand Palais. It was not moving in the 
same way that the decoration I saw at the Ambulance 
was, but it was very beautiful. It was in a great hall 
like the Boston Arena — only very light because of 
the glass roof. We were up in the gallery leaning over 
the rail. All the men to be decorated were in a group 
near the door at one side; opposite them the band 
(who, it turns out, are also soldiers and stretcher- 
bearers) ; the two long sides and farther end lined with 
a double row of French Territorials. Exactly at the 
hour the General entered and the band played the 
"Marseillaise"; then he walked all round the double 
row of Territorials, saluting each company; the men 
to be decorated marched into the middle of the 
square — most of them wounded, of course, many of 
them on crutches, followed by a man carrying a 
chair. Before each group was decorated the General 
shouted an order to the band, who gave a bugle call 
with drums. First came the officers of the Legion of 
Honor, then chevaliers of the Legion, M^dailles Mili- 
taires, and Croix de Guerre. It was awfully well done 
— a good deal of ceremony and yet extremely simple: 
the band playing off and on at exactly the right 
times when it might otherwise have become a little 
monotonous. 

This is the first sunny day for weeks and weeks. 
The weather has favored Paris during this last full- 
moon period. 

Colonel D. is now Chief of Supply here in France; 



PARIS BOMBED i6_f 

big job, similar to Ryan's in the States, only compli- 
cated by the fact that everything is done through 
the Allies. A captain whom I do not know is Assistant 
to Chief of Supply and R. D. S. I believe is to be his 
assistant ; but of that I will write you more when it is 
really going. 

Poor Pirie and Kenneth have met another reverse, 
this time in the crazy French law which makes it 
necessary all through a woman^s life that she shall 
have the consent of both parents, even when, as in 
this case she does not live with her father and is not 
supported by him. 

May 7 

The father gave his consent, so that's all right. 
Now it only remains to be seen whether K. can get 
the day off. Pirie has had such a nice letter from 
Mrs. G. 

I have been having the most wickedly joyful hour 
or two! Mary has gone away for a week and I have 
rearranged all the furniture. To-morrow I shall get a 
new table-cover! The desk and light are now so re- 
lated to each other that one can write a letter in the 
evening, and as we are almost never here in the day- 
time, that seems to me a decided advantage. And al- 
though the room is still too long and narrow, it is not 
as bad as it was. She will probably hate it and in that 
case will, of course, change it back again. 

Unless something unexpected occurs you may ex- 
pect me home before Christmas. 

Yesterday Mr. Diman and I went up on Mont- 



i66 ON DUTY AND OFF 

martre for supper. We planned it the day before, 
when the weather was exquisite, and of course it 
clouded over. However, it was quite lovely and good 
fun. We tried to sup at the Lapin Agile, which has 
considerable local color, but you have to command 
your dinner in advance. There is an old man there 
dressed in brown velveteen with scarlet, Byronesque 
necktie and white, flowing beard, who exhibited the 
grand salon to us, and as there was a guitar on the 
table I seized upon it and we sang ** Santa Lucia" in 
duet. Then he sang another Italian song to me, with 
absolutely killing glances from most beautiful brown 
eyes. 

Mary had a thrilling adventure yesterday. She 
found a little boy of thirteen crying bitterly on the 
bridge, and it turned out that he was a refugi6 from 
near Noyon, that he had lost his mother and sister en 
route, and for four days had eaten nothing but four 
sous* worth of bread and had slept in empty boats 
along the river. The various French people to whom 
he had told his story said, "Pauvre petit," and left it 
there; but Mary, being of a different type, took him to 
the Red Cross and thence to their refugee hotel, with 
a regular feed thrown in. He apparently declared 
himself her slave for life. She had to go off, but has 
instructed me to get him a book to read. Was n't that 
an adventure? 

May 12 
I believe Mother is just sentimental enough to like 
a "Mother's Letter"! It is certainly the jayest idea. 



PARIS BOMBED 167 

If I were in the Y.M.C.A. and had to urge boys to 
write a "Mother's Letter" I should die of shame. 
And I went to tea at the Janets* and found two en- 
listed men who had got her name (as being at home) 
from the Y.M.C.A. and had actually come because it 
was Mother's Day and they thought most likely Ma- 
dame Janet was a mother! People accuse me of being 
sentimental, but I am nothing to these enlisted men. 
The Janets are awfully hospitable. The son has just 
started his military training, which lasts two months; 
then he goes to the front as a canonnier for five 
months and returns to Fontainebleau for the artillery 
course. Madame Lauth's son is doing the same. 

Mary has come back from her country week in 
blooming state. 

At last, on Saturday, Kenneth got permission for 
the whole day the following Saturday. So all was se- 
rene, all other arrangements having been made. But 
when the boys got to the train to come to Paris this 
week they were told that all permissions had been 
stopped ! Divided opinion as to whether it is an epi- 
demic of mumps or a fresh offensive. Of course, they 
don't know whether the permission he had obtained 
for next Saturday will hold, or not. Is n't it trying? 

May 16 
Last night we had a raid, the first in ages. We were 
dining with the Dells and were just about to come 
home when the siren sounded. Mary cleverly found a 
taxi (who refused to take us, but Mary said we'd go 
as far as he went, and he finally took us all the way), 



i68 ON DUTY AND OFF 

and then at home we found an American and went 
out on the bridge with him. It really is a pretty sight, 
you know: the beautiful night and the flashes of 
shrapnel. At one juncture we thought we heard three 
bombs drop, successively nearer, so we ran just as 
fast as we could in the opposite direction. Of course, 
it turns out this morning that the Gothas did n't get 
over Paris at all. There was another alerte at two in 
the morning, but we did n't wake up. 

May 20 
After more little difficulties in the way of papers 
and permissions than an American would believe pos- 
sible, Kenneth and Pirie are really married. Pirie 
has kept her serenity wonderfully, to my mind, for 
there has been enough to give her nervous prostra- 
tion. Then Kenneth did not know — did not even 
think he knew — that he could have the one day's 
permission until the Monday of the very week; and 
no sooner did he think he knew than permissions 
were all revoked and again he was in absolute uncer- 
tainty. Two days before the wedding Pirie received 
a letter from the lawyer saying she must have her 
birth certificate renewed, although this had been 
done six months before. That strikes me as the 
most futile of all — you are only born once, after all. 
Pirie and her brother had to walk miles and miles 
out of Paris to get this certificate fixed up, and they 
could not have then if the brother had not been a 
lieutenant who could insist on having the papers at 
once. But that was finally cleared up. The very day 



PARIS BOMBED 169 

before the wedding Pirie had a letter from Kenneth 
saying that he did not know whether permissions 
would be granted again in time, but that come what 
might he would reach Paris in time to be married ; he 
had engaged a bicycle, arranged to have a boy sign 
the sick-list for him, and he was going to run away, 
even though he knew it would mean a week or two 
nominally in jail when he got back to school. And he 
really did have to run away! He just swaggered past 
the first guard, at the school ; walked and ran through 
the Forest, hiding behind trees when he saw any one 
coming, reached the next station below Fontaine- 
bleau just in time to jump over the gate and make 
the train ! Pirie met him in Paris. He waited till every 
one had gone through the gate and then somehow got 
into the buffet, where they had lunch and then es- 
caped by the back door! Was not that romantic for 
this age and day? But poor Kenneth was pretty 
much all in by the end of Saturday; he had planned 
and worried so much about it. 

The wedding day (May 1 8th) was the second fair day 
after weeks of cold, foggy weather; it was a perfect 
June day. I got up at five in the morning and went 
down to the big market to get flowers. It was too de- 
licious down there, with the rows and rows of flowers 
of every kind and color — there must be at least half 
a mile of them. Of course Kenneth and Pirie did not 
know there were any flowers in the church and I 
knew they would n't, but it satisfied my sense of the 
fitness of things, and I loved doing it. If you like a 
comic sight you should have seen me staggering into 



170 ON DUTY AND OFF 

the Metro, along with all the other market-women, 
carrying a bundle of flowers about the dimensions of a 
fat five-year-old child ! I did n't have time to be as 
particular about arranging the flowers as I should 
have liked (just for myself, it made no difference to 
any one else), for we were supposed to be at Pirie's at 
quarter-past nine, to go with the happy pair, Madame 
Pire, two brothers and sisters-in-law, infant niece and 
friend, to the Mairie. **We" means Lippy and me, 
who represented the American part of the company. 
Kenneth looked his best, in a new blue aspirant's 
uniform and French military boots of soft leather, 
laced right up to the knee. He is so much browner 
than he was in Paris. Pirie looked prettier than I have 
ever seen her, in a sky-blue crepe de chine dress which 
she had made herself during the last week — on 
nights when the lights did n't have to be put out on 
account of raids! It was very simple and very becom- 
ing. She had a very dark-blue hat with a little white 
ostrich feather in it. She did look darling. 

We all met, as I said, and went over to the Mairie 
together. There we were ushered into a room with the 
most awful stained-glass windows, and rows and 
rows of crimson cushioned benches. There were about 
a dozen other marriages being accomplished at the 
same time, and the assortment of types and of 
clothes was very funny; there was a beautiful young 
bride in white satin and orange blossoms, who looked 
entirely misplaced, and an extraordinary woman of 
fifty with some kind of white satin basket and enor- 
mous plume on her head, and many another. We all sat 



PARIS BOMBED 171 

in rows and pretended we loved waiting, but it cer- 
tainly was not conducive to feeling the solemnity of 
the occasion. Every few minutes a man would come in 
from the next room and shout out: **Mariage de 
Smith et Jones ; les deux f uturs, le pere et mere, et les 
quatres temoins avangent!" Finally it was "Mariage 
de Pire et Gaston," and we advanced and signed in 
two large books and returned to wait our turn with 
the Mayor, who had in the meantime come into the 
big room, very resplendent in dress-suit and a broad 
red, white, and blue ribbon across his shirt-front. It 
was our turn at last, and we went up inside a little 
fence, when to our dismay the Mayor got up and 
marched out. We waited and waited, with a vivid pic- 
ture in mind of the minister and various guests wait- 
ing at the church, and finally Pirie's brother got dis- 
gusted and went out to find out what the trouble was 
— the Mayor had gone to a funeral ! Then Brother 
Pire turned round and told all the other waiting fami- 
lies that it was an outrage against French Liberty and 
the People and that no free-born man should submit 
to such treatment, and that if they would take his ad- 
vice they would none of them put anything into the 
collection box (which is passed round after each mar- 
riage). Then the Mayor came back; there was a si- 
lence, and Brother Pire (a very smart-looking lieu- 
tenant) stood up and in most eloquent terms told the 
Mayor exactly what he thought of him. '* Monsieur, 
n'insistez pas, je vous en prie," thundered the Mayor; 
but Brother insisted for all he was worth, and three 
times the Mayor banged on the table and said, 



172 ON DUTY AND OFF 

** Monsieur, n'insistez pas/* and three times Brother 
continued his harangue (oddly enough, having all the 
company behind thoroughly with him, which was so 
French), until with a bigger bang on the table the 
Mayor said that never during his mayorship had he 
been so treated and that he would not marry them at 
all, and out he stalked. You can imagine poor Ken- 
neth sitting there, not knowing quite enough French 
to interfere. After some ten minutes more Brother 
went out and appeased the Mayor and the marriage 
was finished — the Mayor and the Brother shaking 
hands like the best of friends afterwards. It was the 
most un-American thing you ever saw. 

When we reached the church the minister re- 
hearsed them a little and taught Madame Pire to 
understand, "Who giveth this woman," and we 
walked up the aisle after Kenneth and Pirie — and 
they were married. Of course, all war weddings must 
be very affecting; this was the first I had attended. 
We signed another book, and the deed was irrevo- 
cably done. Then we all went down the Champs 
Elys6es to a very nice little restaurant and had a very 
good wedding breakfast. 

Their return to Fontainebleau was perilous — 
Kenneth was rushed past the guard by this same 
brother of Pirie*s, and so forth. But I learned in the 
meantime from another Fontainebleau man that 
Kenneth stood so very high in the regard of his lieu- 
tenant that he probably would not be put in jail — 
and so it proved. 



PARIS BOMBED 173 

May 21 
A more discouraged and disappointed daughter 
you have never had. Yesterday, when I sent you a 
cable saying I was going to work in a French hospital, 
I had been told I should be sent to a French hospital 
near Beauvais, which you can see on the map is very 
near the front, near Compiegne. As you can imagine, 
I was perfectly thrilled and on the top of the wave. 
To-day, when I went to start my passports, they said 
that they did not want any one in the French hospi- 
tals, after all, as they had put nurses in, and that 
they had had an urgent call from Limoges and 
wanted me to go there. Well, I could have refused, 
but it seemed too idiotic to do so just because of the 
place, so I signed up for that; but I am so disap- 
pointed I could cry. I don't want to be in an Ameri- 
can hospital, and above all I don't want to be way 
down there (almost at Bordeaux) when I thought I 
was going in exactly the opposite direction. 

I suppose I might now begin back at the beginning 
and tell you what I am going to do. This is the job of 
*' searcher" or "home communications." You try to 
trace missing men by talking to the other men; you 
act as secretary to wounded men, writing home for 
them about their affairs ; you write to the families of 
men who die; and in any spare time you be a "little 
Sunshine." In a French hospital it would have been 
great fun ; in an American, I am not a bit sure. How- 
ever, I am in for it. The way I came to decide to do it 
was that I decided to come home sometime before 
Christmas, and it seemed silly not to see anything but 



174 ON DUTY AND OFF 

an office in Paris all the time I was here. But Limoges 
— Heavens ! That 's where they send French generals 
who don't succeed with their command. To say a 
person is Limog6 is to say he has had to be got 
rid of. 

On the other hand, it must be more or less interest- 
ing; can't help it. If they had never mentioned Beau- 
vais I should n't feel so badly, but that would have 
been perfect. 

I wish you would find out about the law that if you 
have a brother in the Army you can't get a passport. 
However, I suppose if I once get home I might as well 
stay and get going on something there. I may say, 
however, that I am going to have a vacation before I 
start — a good long one. It will be two years in Sep- 
tember since I have had more than three days' (except 
the steamer, which I certainly don't count), and in 
another week it will be a whole year since I have had 
more than one day and a half at a time. But now that 
I am going on that theme, I might as well tell you 
about the beginning of my trip to Blois, for it goes to 
show that resting is silly. Friday night I did n't get to 
bed till one and it takes me an hour to go to sleep. 
Saturday was Kenneth's wedding in the morning, 
work in the afternoon, and then I dressed and went 
to the station, hoping against hope not to be too late 
for the seven o'clock train for Blois, where Mary al- 
ready was. Found the train had been shoved ahead 
an hour and did n't go till eight, was n't due to arrive 
till eleven, and was always late. All the afternoon I 
had been so tired that I thought I should burst, and 



PARIS BOMBED,^ 175 

I almost did n*t go, anyway, and when I found (not 
till after I had vainly tried for a seat in every com- 
partment in the two great long sections of the train) 
that the hour was postponed, I almost went home 
again, for the compartment was second-class, all the 
other passengers men who were eating sausages and 
hard-boiled eggs for supper, and I pictured myself 
arriving at Blois in the pitch blackness with a cross 
station-master and no possible method of getting to 
the hotel. But then I said to myself, ** You will never 
be middle-aged and in Paris again, free to be as much 
of a fool as you please, with no one to bother about 
you ; you better go to it." I went to it. The train was 
hotter than Tophet, but we all managed to sleep most 
of the way down, and I arrived at half -past eleven 
feeling almost completely rested ! There were loads of 
people at the station and I spied at once a very nice- 
looking sergeant, of whom I inquired the way to the 
H6tel de France. He asked me if I was travelling as 
an American, and when I allowed I was he took me 
through the exit for Americans (Americans here means 
Army), where I was duly registered, and then he found 
me such a very nice first lieutenant, medical (who 
had been for three months near the British front), 
who escorted me to the H6tel de France. That was 
my first experience of an Army town, and it was 
certainly a very agreeable one. But the point is that 
I felt as rested as possible by the time I got to bed ; 
so in spite of appearances I would have been more of 
an idiot to have stayed in Paris than I was to go 
down. Ten Eyck was the object of the trip — he came 



176 ON DUTY AND OFF 

up from the place he is at — and he really was nice 
enough to warrant a great deal. One of the very 
best, 

Wednesday morning 
I have just been to see about my costume, and 
had the second blow — the blue linen dresses, which 
sound so nice, are absolutely formless, literally, and 
then tied in by a narrow sash — no fit — just like a 
full-length smock, only a scanter skirt. However, I 
think the whole thing will be fun. The R.C. represen- 
tative there is Mr. Russell Tyson. We came home in 
191 1 on the steamer with him. So that will be nice. 
And a great friend of Ten Eyck^s is there.* It is a Yale 
unit! They give me a suit, two blouses, two dresses, 
and hat, and four hundred francs a month on which I 
am supposed to be able to live; also travelling ex- 
penses. Going to Dr. Blake's this afternoon to be 
inoculated. 

May 22 
Had an alerte last night, with some very snappy 
barrage fire. When the shrapnel began bursting al- 
most overhead, we took the advice of a couple of 
French officers (the French really do know when to 
come in out of the rain) and went under the bridge 
with fifteen or twenty Americans — they are so nice 
and polite! It was the most beautiful warm night 
flooded with moonlight — misty down the end of the 
river. I shall never forget these moonlight nights 
under the bridge, with the beautiful curves reflected, 



PARIS BOMBED 177 

and occasional red -and -green lights on boats. No bomb 
dropped in the city, though every one thought one 
was, there was such a terrific crash. 

May 24 
It's all right, after all! Or is unless they change 
again. I am not to be Limogee after all, but am to be 
in a French hospital. It will be in every way the most 
thrilling and satisfying climax for my whole trip — 
to be able to do for our own men and yet be with the 
French. Nothing could be better. I can't tell you how 
I feel about it. . . . 

I am too thrilled to write. I am sitting in an arm- 
chair waiting for Lieutenant Skinner to dictate, but 
he is talking on the telephone with Lieutenant Bou- 
langer, and Mr. Bugatti has just come in with a cable, 
evidently bringing good news, so I 'm afraid the dic- 
tation will not come for some time. In the meantime 
I was hoping to get off at six because Mary and Syl- 
via and I are going to dine together somewhere. But 
what's that to me? — I am not for Limoges. 

You know, lots of men seem to think, still, that the 
war will be over this fall, and almost every one says 
that in three months' time we shall know a lot more 
about the end than we do now. If the offensive fails, 
— and it will, — the Germans have nothing to look 
forward to except increasing numbers of Americans. 
We never get any decent accounts of things here, 
though I was surprised to learn from Eleanor of the 
things that you don't know over there. Mary says 
they were never in the papers here, either. I suppose 



178 ON DUTY AND OFF 

I don't realize how many things are in the air and 
not on paper. On the other hand, there are various 
things, n'est-ce pas, that are on paper when they 
should be in the air. 



CHAPTER V 

AFTER CHATEAU THIERRY 

May 30 
Here, contrary to all expectation, I am — still in 
Paris. I thought I would surely have left for my 
French hospital by this time, but all passes, for 
women who are not nurses, for the region of Beauvais 
have been held up for some time, and goodness knows 
if I shall ever get off ; we may all be leaving Paris in 
the opposite direction before that time. That, of 
course, is one of those over-statements employed as 
wit by dull minds. I am all shopped and packed and 
ready to go on a moment*s notice. 

In the meantime the German offensive is the only 
thing in the world, set off by the long-range gun, 
though that held off to-day at half-past six for twelve 
hours at Papal request, because it is Corpus Christi 
Day. But it banged a couple of times very early and 
is going every twenty minutes now, tant pis. 

To-morrow I am beginning at eight in the morning 
at the Ambulance — having overheard Mrs. Vander- 
bilt say she could barely get in to the Memorial Day 
service because she was so hard at work making beds. 
So I have unpacked my uniform and had my caps 
starched and shall leave the house at seven to-morrow. 
Eleanor Cotton was to come, too, but was requisi- 



i8o ON DUTY AND OFF 

tioned by the Red Cross for night canteen for refugees 
at the Gare de I'Est, so she went off at half -past eight 
to-night and returns at half-past seven to-morrow 
morning. 

I feel that I ought not to say anything about the 
offensive, for everything you ought to know will be in 
your papers. The Air Service, according to Mary, feel 
more confident about this attack than the last. 

June 7 
I am open to congratulations on not being a trained 
nurse by profession. I did it for six days and I never 
was so tired in my whole life — my back ached so I 
thought it would break in two — the only thing that 
buoyed me up was the thought that I should probably 
never have to do it again. From eight to quarter of 
seven, I sat down only about twenty minutes for 
lunch, and the rest of the time I made beds and gave 
bed baths and scrubbed tables and walked back and 
forth from the ward to the storeroom and hot- water 
tap (about half a mile) without a pause — except for 
some removing of old dressings and bandaging on 
new ones, taking temperatures and serving meals — 
never again ! 

In the hospital which is arranged for seven hundred 
we had about thirteen hundred men — most of them 
not very badly wounded, and a fair number just 
gassed. All the corridors had a continuous row of 
beds, end on end, and that made a great many. I 
was in an improvised ward (no big table, chairs, or 
cupboard) of twenty beds, and made a lot of the 



AFTER CHATEAU THIERRY 181 

corridor beds, too. The boys were mostly full of pep 
and crazy to get back to the front — they are sur- 
prisingly bloodthirsty and treat the whole question 
of ''bumping off" and being ''bumped off" as the 
best joke in the world. They are utterly cheerful. 
They all look very young and pink and white — so 
much younger than the French. 

The rush has slacked off now, half the corridor beds 
being empty, and I am back on histories as I was last 
year — only I am also historian in the operating- 
room, which will be very interesting when I know the 
doctors a little so that I can watch a bit more closely. 
Of course, every day I expect to be off to my French 
hospital, but the pass is still being held up. I am living 
most inconveniently, having packed everything to 
start at once two weeks ago. Everything is in a per- 
fect mess. 

Yesterday at Tosca one of the old blesses — not 
one I ever had much to do with, except that he was a 
great pal of H. Fish's — came all the way across the 
house to talk to me — you *d never find an American 
taking all that trouble and doing such a cute thing. 
However, don't imagine I don't think more highly of 
" our boys" than of the French, for I do — but they 
certainly lack the social qualities. The French may 
only put on their interest in you, but if they put it on 
successfully and continuously, I don't know why it 
is n't just as good. If you believe their friendliness 
genuine, it is so for you. 



i82 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Same day, 1 1 p.m. 
Operating-room, Neuilly 

On Thursday I left a calm hospital, with nearly all 
the corridor beds empty. At half -past two to-day I 
found every bed full, the nurses* home turned into 
wards, two tent wards on the roof, even the ground- 
floor corridor double lined with men on stretchers and 
a double line down to the operating-room. I went 
there, to work, and found four cases at once being 
done just as rapidly as possible, with two doctors, 
etherizer and nurse for each case — none of whose 
names I knew, but all of which had to go down on the 
operating-slip. My job is far the hardest I have done 
yet. I have to find out from the patient how long ago 
he was wounded — that means noticing every time 
one comes in and seizing on him before the ether- 
izer gets him; then I put down his name, doctors' 
names, hour of beginning, how much ether given, 
hour of ending ; and then catch the doctor at the one 
moment when he can give me his attention, after he 
has stopped operating and before he goes to wash up, 
in time to get the diagnosis and operating notes dic- 
tated and written on two slips and one slip pinned 
to the patient before the stretcher-bearers hustle him 
off. Every one is hurrying at top speed every second 
— except the operating surgeons : they are wonder- 
ful in the personal way they speak to each man before 
he is etherized, and in their patience and politeness to 
every one. 

It just makes you sick: these rows and rows of 
waiting boys and the thought of all the acute pain 



AFTER CHATEAU THIERRY 183 

that is being constantly distributed from the operat- 
ing-room throughout the hospital. I have caught 
glimpses of all sorts of terrible things; but every one 
is so busy, including myself, that I don't get a chance 
to really see what is going on. 

It is now seven in the evening, Saturday. I was on 
yesterday from half-past two to nine and this morn- 
ing from eight to twelve and have just come on for 
the night. They will relieve me to-morrow if they can. 
Of course, if I can't stay awake I can go off and let the 
etherizers take the notes as they have heretofore. 

Oh, dear — it is too horrible! To-day we have 
mainly Marines after the two days* glorious fight 
they have put up north of Chateau Thierry, and 
we get them only a few hours from the battle-field. 
The Americans are a great crowd : the finest stuff in 
the world. 

Just now there is just one very serious operation go- 
ing on and the room is as quiet as a church. But when 
there are four there is always some one going under or 
coming out, and the room resounds with groans and 
shouts and curses and cries of "Give me my gas 
mask," or "Kamerad," and sometimes shrieks of 
laughter — it is rather terrific. 

All the boys are keen to get back and have another 
whack at the ** Dutch." One doctor said to-day: 
**Well the Dutch rather got you this time, didn't 
they, my boy?" The boy swelled with pride and said, 
**Yes; but, oh, doctor, you just ought to have seen 
the Dutch!" 

Last night when every one went to supper I had 



i84 ON DUTY AND OFF 

quite a chat with one of the nicest Marines you ever 
saw — perfectly delightful — they are so clean-cut. 

June 9 
Monday night, ten o'clock, at home, thank 
Heaven. Saturday night turned into Sunday morning 
with the stream absolutely steady — three or four op- 
erations all the time. When at about half-past three 
in the morning some one drew the curtain and opened 
the window on a marvellous deep violet-blue sky with 
the trees coal black against it and a fresh breeze, it 
was more than one could bear with equanimity — so 
heavenly outside and so horrible inside — all the blood 
and the hacked-up flesh, and the thought of how each 
one is going to suffer when he gets out of ether. 

At midnight hostilities cease for half an hour and 
every one gropes his way down to the dining-room for 
a regular meal. Then a new shift of doctors and nurses 
comes on. My job is not as tiring as the ward work, 
except that I stand all the time. At half-past seven we 
have breakfast, and by that time I was pretty much 
all in, so I went off slightly later — but the operating 
went right on. I slept as best I could that day and 
went on again at half-past eight Sunday night; but 
the convoys had stopped coming in, for the time, so 
that the operating was over at half -past eleven. The 
rest of the night I washed rubber gloves, and then 
copied the operations into a book. Every operation 
gets recorded three times ! — Army regulations. Of 
course, I was much less tired this morning (though it 
was a much longer night, because so monotonous), 



AFTER CHATEAU THIERRY 185 

and I slept pretty well from about half-past eleven to 
six ; nevertheless, I was very glad to get a note at six 
saying I need n't come till nine to-morrow. I don't 
know what that means, but anyhow I have the night 
for sleeping. I am glad to have fait le service de nuit, 
because it is so extraordinary, but I hope I shan't 
have to keep it up. 

I get an odd half-hour or so almost always to talk 
to the boys and enjoy it immensely. I write letters 
for them occasionally — they are mostly very inar- 
ticulate, but I found one very gloomy Irishman from 
County Cork (and Chicago) who dictated a vigorous 
and fluent letter to his mother, still a resident of 
Cork, and told her just what he thought of the Ger- 
mans for bringing misery on the whole worrld and 
making us all travel from home — in the richest 
brogue. Another man I have talked to is an Irishman 
from Charlestown, Massachusetts. 

About every tenth man can hardly talk English; 
and at least fifty per cent have absolutely foreign 
names. 

I feel, often, rather hopeful that the war may be 
over in four or five months. 

I must find a spot to lie down on. 



CHAPTER VI 

A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 

June 19 
As you will know by cable before this reaches you, I 
am off for Limoges after all : Base Hospital No. 24. 

So this is farewell, Paris. Well — some day I'll 
come back and show you the sights — my sights. At 
Limoges you can at least think of me as being as safe 
as in Wisconsin. 

I am actually in the train, with my luggage all 
checked. Of course, as the train has n't started, some- 
thing may happen, but Fate has only six minutes 
left. I am going to a town where I know slightly one 
man, whom I may never see, have met one other (Mr. 
Tyson, my chief), and that's all. It is quite an adven- 
ture; more of a one in the way of people than Beau- 
vais, as I know several girls there, but not so much in 
the way of bombs and Germans. 

The train is really moving. I have had a wild two 
days getting packed and saying good-bye to people. 
Sunday, Mary and Louisa and I went out to our same 
old hillside for lunch. In the evening Eleanor and I 
went to hear "Werther" sung. Monday I went to 
the A.R.C. and got all kinds of instructions, rounded 
up my uniform, applied for my ticket, etc. ; said fare- 
well to Aviation, and went to supper with Sylvia and 
her sister. 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 187 

June 21 

The trip — the latter half — was lovely. Banks 
flooded with blue lupin, pierced with spikes of crim- 
son foxglove or blotched with scarlet poppies — 
fields and fields of poppies and daisies. The country 
shortly before Limoges is like the lower Berkshires — 
round Limoges itself it is quite lovely, too. I made 
friends with a Red Cross doctor, who came and called 
on me in the train and helped me off with my lug- 
gage. Mr. Tyson met me, and he really is the most 
friendly, optimistic person I have seen for some time. 

But, oh me, oh my, the hospital seems so quiet and 
so healthy after Neuilly ! About four fifths of the men 
are up — and a man in bed is so much easier to 
please ! However, Mr. Tyson is doing every kind of a 
thing here, and I can relieve him of the detail of the 
searching for missing men. ... 

The refugee conditions here are terrible. The doc- 
tor I saw on the train is here to investigate them, and 
last night he told me things that would make you 
sick. One house he went into, right near the hotel, 
had a big room with no beds or even chairs, just 
straw, where twenty-two men and women had lived 
since last November — no possibility of the slightest 
privacy and no bathroom arrangements of any kind 
— not even a basin to wash your face in. If you let 
your imagination loose on that room you will about 
hit it. 

The night I came we went over to some long, shed- 
like barracks where the refugees were lying on mat- 
tresses — again men, women, and children all to- 



i88 ON DUTY AND OFF 

gether. There was one woman with six children, 
down to a babe of two months, who had been refu- 
giee twice. The population of Limoges has more than 
doubled in a year, so you can imagine what it is to 
find work for these people — or anything else. 

Everything is fearfully expensive, and at any price 
it is almost impossible to find a room. I am getting a 
real war breakfast now — coffee, without milk, and 
two slices of bread! No butter, and jam an extra. 

Yesterday afternoon we went to see a Mrs. Havi- 
land, who is from Cambridge and whose husband is 
head of the apparently famous porcelain factories 
here. She has a flat converted into a hospital for 
French soldiers which she runs absolutely herself — 
twenty- five beds — and they give her the worst cases 
that come through. 

It is a cold rain to-day and I wish I were at home; 
or even in Paris. Well, I shall be before many months. 

June 22 
It has cleared off, and as I sit on my broad window- 
sill I see a great half-circle of grassy or wooded hills 
with a little gap in the middle where I suppose a 
river runs. To-morrow being the Sabbath I shall take 
a half-day off and investigate the country-side. It 
would be a perfect place for picnics if only Mary were 
here. Limoges itself is high and the air delicious. 

The ** searching'* is quite exciting. The first day I 
came on a murder and a desertion ! 

Thank you a thousand times for the pictures of J., 
which I can see are very good — and yet I should 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 189 

never know him. The moustache and no Sam 
Browne belt make him look unfamiliar as himself and 
as a type — why no belt? Except for that he looks 
grand in his uniform. Awfully glad to have the pic- 
tures. 

June 27 

Ma chere petite soeur — 

Cette lettre a 6t6 commenc6e il y a peut-^tre un 
mois ou plus — mais enfin j 'arrive k vous Texp^dier. 

Je vous 6crive un petit mot ce soir "pour vous don- 
ner mes nouvelles qui sont tou jours bonnes," as any 
poilu would say, et pour vous apprendre que je viens 
de m'installer dans une maison particuliere chez 
des gens more than particular. J'ai une toute petite 
chambre au rez de chauss6e qui donne sur un beau 
jardin avec des arbres derriere. Le pere de famille 
est administrateur des ceuvres publiques pour les mu- 
tiles de guerre (frangais). C'etait bien amusant — la 
mere, avec qui j'ai parle la premiere fois que j'y suis 
venue, a bien voulu me prendre comme lodger, mais 
le lendemain lorsque je suis revenue pour dire que je 
viendrais, elle m'a dit, "Mais 6coutez, Mademoiselle! 
Mon mari absolument ne veut pas — il crains ne pas 
avoir un coin a lui, et une jeune fille — et une Ameri- 
caine — tout ga serait tres genant — et surtout il 
avait peur que vous apporteriez des microbes de 
I'hopital et que le petit (a strapping lad of fourteen) 
attraperait quelque chose." And finally that "mon 
mari" would rather pay my board and lodging else- 
where than have me in the house. But later in the 



igo ON DUTY AND OFF 

day Madame came dashing up to the hospital to say 
that she had decide her husband by telHng him that 
if they did n't take me I should have to spend the 
night in the street, as the hotel would not keep me — 
to which he exclaimed ** Quelle horreur! Fetch the 
dame k Tinstant" — et comme ga, me voila. 

Eh bien, c'est maintenant onze heures et demie et 
il faut absolument me coucher. Ici je suis un peu loin 
de I'hopital ; mais vous n'avez aucune id6e comme la 
ville est pleine de gens Strangers — des r6fugi6s et 
des Americains. 

Un de ces jours. 

June 29 
Je vous ai raconte comment le pere avait peur que 
*'le petit" attraperait quelque maladie et qu'il m'a 
demande de bien d^sinfecter mes mains avant de re- 
venir le soir, mais je ne vous ai pas dit qu'il etait siir 
qu'en me baignant dans un tub (que je les avals pr6- 
venu etait tout n6cessaire) j'eclabousserais le par- 
quet et les murs ! Ainsi chaque matin la bonne vient 
me dire que la cuisine est a ma disposition, et j'y vais 
poser mon tub sur un parquet de pierre. Je mets la 
cuvette dans le sink et le tub a cote, et voila — et des 
rangs de casseroles en cuivre me benissent des murs. 
Je vous assure j'y suis tres bien. 

(J'ecrive tout en mangeant des tres bons chocolats 
que m'a donne cet ange d'homme, M. Tyson.) 

I wish you could look in on me in my little room, 
with its bed right under the big window — just like 
a tuberculosis patient, I remarked to Madame to- 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 191 

night and got a shuddering "Oh, I hope not.*' I had 
forgotten her sensibilities. But really she and Pere are 
most cordial, kind-hearted, and genial. My room has 
a bookcase full of books, and another of bound Illus- 
trations for years back, as well as of the present. 

Well, the work is going along all right, I think, and 
I enjoy it, though I have n't the useful sense I had at 
the Ambulance. In the mornings I either go round the 
wards with Mr. Tyson, distributing sometimes candy, 
sometimes smokes, sometimes magazines, fruit, writ- 
ing-paper, or toothbrushes, to all the wards — some 
twenty, with thirty or forty beds in each; or I take 
my "missing" list and the list I have made out from 
the registrar's office of men from the same com- 
panies and go round getting those men to tell me 
what happened to the missing, or, where we already 
know they are dead, the "D.D.B.," which I finally 
found was " Details of Death and Burial." The after- 
noon I spend in writing out my notes, writing letters 
for the gas, right arm fracture, or contagious cases, 
reading aloud to the severely gassed, and chatting by 
and large. 

To-day I rashly bought (out of my own "give- 
away" money) a first-class (much better than we 
needed, only there was n't any other in town) guitar. 
I had borrowed one for several days for a boy who 
had played professionally, and the doctor was so 
pleased with its inspiriting effect that he begged me 
to get the loan extended, and did n't evacuate the 
boy for several days more just so he could play to the 
wards. As the guitar was the priceless and unique pos- 



192 ON DUTY AND OFF 

session of its owner, I hated to keep it, and therefore 
bought the other. There is already a mandoHn at the 
hospital, so they have regular concerts and go round 
from ward to ward. Two of the wards I feel at home 
in, and individuals I know in others. When the 
Champ de Juillet (Chicago unit) opens, as it will in a 
week, I shall hardly have time to do anything beside 
the real "searching," whereas I should prefer just to 
do the reading aloud part — except that the other 
serves as a good introduction. 

I have n't seen an aeroplane or heard a bomb or 
barrage since I got down here, and I must say I miss 
at least the former. 

In the lovely, muddy, wet, scrambly walk I took 
last Sunday I lost my pocket-book with letter of 
credit therein. Luckily, as I, started I took out a hun- 
dred-franc note (practically all the money there was 
in it), my worker's permit (which serves as passe- 
porte), and my bread ticket, saying to myself that if 
some one demanded my purse I would give them that 
but guard the essentials of life — so those I had in my 
belt and they stayed with me. I trust I shall not need 
any more money, having drawn my ** Flight out of 
Paris" funds, but still will you ask L. & H. to send 
over a new one by mail, as I could always cable if 
I needed one quickly. I only lost the sheet part, not 
the little book. 

Limoges f July 3 
Did I ever chance to mention the Zouave get-up? 
It varies in color — sometimes the huge bloomers are 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 193 

red and the bolero jacket black braided with red; 
sometimes the whole is dark blue ; and sometimes, of 
course, they dress like Christians. But to-day I saw 
the winner, in bloomers (not as big as usual), jacket 
and waistcoat of most brilliant blue; the jacket heav- 
ily bound and decorated with bright yellow; sash and 
cap of scarlet. Quite stunning. 

To-day I talked with a most pathetic ambulance 
man of forty. I was just walking by his bed — I did 
not know him at all — when he said, ''Wait a min- 
ute, I want to show you something." So he untied a 
newspaper package and got out some photographs of 
an utterly shapeless, ugly barn, and a few cows, 
which he said was home — a ranch in Texas. One 
photograph was of a woman leaning on a stick, feed- 
ing the ducks, and that was his aunt, who had 
brought him up. His uncle and sister Nellie had both 
died since he left, and this poor rheumatic-y old lady 
is all alone to manage the farm which is their sole 
means of livelihood. He had half a dozen letters with 
the photographs, and said with satisfaction that a 
fellow that had all those letters was pretty lucky — 
and the worst part of that is it 's true : so many of the 
boys have been here three or four months, and be- 
cause they have moved many times, or for some rea- 
son, have never received a word from home. Well, 
then he gave me a letter he wanted me to read, and 
you never heard anything so pathetic — it was an 
account of the "deth" of Nellie by "newmony,** and 
how uncle " grief ed and weped" so that he had an at- 
tack of heart trouble during the funeral, had to leave 



194 ON DUTY AND OFF 

the church, and died before his wife got back from 
**bering" her **nece" in the "semitary." Then it 
tells how kind every one was and what lovely * * bok- 
ets" they had, and how uncle was "beried" two days 
later; and how she did n't know what to do about the 
farm, but would try to keep it going till the war was 
over and this boy came home — chiefly because 
"Food will win the war and weVe got to produse 
all we can." She really was too pathetic. The poor 
man is just crazy to get back to the farm, where he is 
sure he would be more useful than in France. He says 
he has had shell shock twice and he is too old for the 
work he is doing — he just hates it and has none of 
the zest that the youngsters have for it. The horrors 
are horrors to him and nothing else. 

To-night at the canteen I learned that Mr. Tyson 
had just heard he was ordered away. That is an awful 
blow. Well, I 'm glad I got started under him. He is an 
angel and most effective. 

Last night I went to the theatre with Mr. O'Brien 
and more than enjoyed myself. The first scene was in 
a grocery store and was perfect. It seemed much less 
theatrical than an English piece does because, we de- 
cided, every 6picerie is just like a stage anyway — so 
it merely seemed as if we were in any of the regular 
stores here. It was capitally acted and a very good 
show. I kept wishing for Father, he would have loved 
it so. Mr. O'Brien is so agreeable and so radically in- 
telligent — or intelligently radical. 

It is quite an affair to come home after nine o'clock 
(bedtime), for there is only one set of keys in the fam- 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 195 

ily and I am not allowed to borrow them. So on reach- 
ing the house I whistle the Marseillaise under Mon- 
sieur's window; he unbolts and opens the heavy 
sheet-iron window shutters, throws out a huge bunch 
of keys to me; I select the biggest (five inches long), 
unlock the garden gate twice, enter and re-lock it 
twice, select a key four inches long with two prongs 
(all this being in complete darkness, I have to choose 
them by size and shape), unlock the outer house door, 
find the key with three prongs and unlock the apart- 
ment door. I must say to their glory, however, that 
once inside the first house door you can light an elec- 
tric lamp which goes out automatically at the end of 
five minutes. They have a few practical things which 
beat ours — but very, very few. 

I suppose, as usual, you want to know just what I 
am doing from moment to moment, so I will give you 
to-day for a starter. Twenty minutes of nine went to 
the watchmaker's to have bless^'s watch repaired. Ten 
minutes of nine to half -past ten, stood in line at the 
Q.M.*s to fill orders for patients. A man came up and 
asked if I could do anything about his wife, who was 
expecting a baby and for two months had not received 
the allotment he made her, and was very poorly off 
in the way of clothes for the baby. Took his name, 
etc., and promised to notify the Home Service De- 
partment, which would have a visitor go to his wife. 
Half-past ten delivered stuff to consignees — horrible 
amount of arithmetic involved in the payments. Went 
to another ward and gave a man green spectacles and 
a razor — this man and nine others were in gas two 



196 ON DUTY AND OFF 

hours before they were aware of it. Their sergeant 
died in three hours, and one by one all but three of 
the others died ("It was kind of disheartening," this 
man said). Two of these three are here. They were 
burned from head to foot — their hair, and even 
their clothes burned ; they could not open their eyes 
for two months and they still have to wear colored 
glasses, are liable not to be able to keep their dinner 
down, and are very out of breath after walking a hun- 
dred yards — though it was about four months ago 
they were gassed. Well, incidentally, they lost every- 
thing they had, and have not been paid for nearly 
seven months. I lent each of them fifty francs. Found 
a boy waiting for me and cashed a check for him of 
four hundred and fifty francs — let 's hope it was 
good. Took some raspberries to a lad who is still very 
sick, though doing finely under a new serum treat- 
ment. Found he had just had transfusion from an- 
other specially nice boy, so I divided the berries be- 
tween them and they said they sure were fine. Talked 
for some time with a French bless6 ; read aloud to my 
other very sick boy, who seems really on his last legs ; 
wrote a letter to the A.R.C. about the wife of the man 
I had seen in the morning, and to him to say I had 
done so; and then it was twelve and time for lunch. 
Half-past twelve went to the registrar's ofiice to 
check off certain lists, and all the rest of the afternoon 
I "searched" for the missing — search being broken 
at intervals with longer or shorter conversations with 
some dozen individuals, including the one who wants 
to go back to the farm. Sang a little with some of 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 197 

them with a guitar I bought with some of Mr. Brush's 
money, as I guess I recounted before. ''Little pigs He 
with their tails curled up" made a good deal of a hit, 
though not so much as with the French girls at Avia- 
tion, where it may be said to have had a succes fou. 
After supper (at six) went to see a Jewish ''mental 
case" who had professed a desire for an Old Testa- 
ment. . . .Talked a while with a very nice boy who 
was putting himself through the University of Wash- 
ington Law School, and intelligent and interesting, 
and with a speculative quality noticeably absent in 
many enlisted men. Then went down to the R.C. 
canteen to return the guitar we had borrowed, and to 
get a delicious glass of iced coffee. Home, and sat out 
in the garden with the very hospitable and pleasant 
folk chez qui j'habite. 

To-morrow is the Fourth. But I must now go to 
bed. I will post this without further ado. 

July 7 
I have for the first time fathomed the mystery of 
why the French think so highly of putting wine into 
water — from a medical point of view: it is not that 
the wine purifies the water, but that it "cuts" it 
and makes it less "cru" for the stomach. My good 
kind landlady would hardly bear the thought of my 
drinking two glasses of water to-night — she was sure 
it would "make me harm" and wanted to put in cog- 
nac and sugar, or substitute beer. 

I wish you could have seen Mr. O'Brien and me 
yesterday, driving through the centre of Limoges, 



igS ON DUTY AND OFF 

under a stupefying sun, in a two-wheeled milk-cart- 
like affair, very old, very shabby, and extraordinarily 
uncomfortable, behind a miniscule horse about a hun- 
dred years old who would n't trot for more than three 
quarters of a minute at a time and would occasionally 
stall on the car track — and every sidewalk lined with 
enlisted men whose salutes the Lieutenant returned 
with an increasingly rosy countenance. Some Sun- 
day parade, I can tell you. And if it was n't saluting 
Americans, it was frankly hilarious French — and 
oh, it was so hot! We jogged along, the seat (no cush- 
ion) getting more and more unbearable, and only for 
about twenty minutes of the whole trip did we get any 
shade. Of course, it was my fault — I chose the vehi- 
cle — but I did n't know what it would be like. At 
the end of the afternoon O'B. confessed that he dis- 
liked being conspicuous! In the evening we went, in- 
vited, to see some French friends of his — very good 
fun. There is no doubt about it, the French are infi- 
nitely easier to get on with, at the first few whacks, 
an3rway, than the Americans. They are so responsive 
and care-free. 

July 15 
East or west, France or home, peace or war, there 
is nothing so recreative,, so equilibrising, as a dish of 
talk with an active and liberal-minded person with 
whom one is in natural rapport. 

An awful thought struck me this afternoon, as I 
stood in our awful little graveyard in the blazing sun : 
namely, the French cemetery seems to me to exactly 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 199 

express them — the graves so close they touch, ter- 
rifically fixed up with real or artificial flowers, quite 
gayly, some very beautiful places; is it possible that 
ours — a bare vacant lot with a wooden fence round 
it, not a shrub or a tree, nothing but bare earth, and a 
few flowers, in the glaring sun — expresses us? No 
shadows, no softness, no suggestion of mystery? 

To-day has been the first unpleasant day here — 
hot and breathless. Ordinarily the weather is marvel- 
lous — nights that are almost cold and remind me of 
Camp. 

Speaking of coincidences — do you remember in 
telling of that night I spent in the operating-room I 
mentioned a boy who said, when the doctor remarked 
that the Dutch had rather got him, " But, Doctor, you 
ought to have seen the Dutch"? He was one of the 
only two boys I remember there. In the next day or 
two I wrote perhaps three letters for the boys, and it 
seems that he, entirely by accident, was one of them. 
Yesterday a boy asked me to write for him, and again 
it was he ! We came to Limoges the same day, and I 
have felt that he was very familiar, but have only 
just pieced it all together. Such a nice boy, too: never- 
failing good-humor under very trying circumstances. 

One of the pleasant items in the day's march is the 
walk to the car in the evening when the streets are 
full of children and you feel now and again a small, hot 
hand squeezed into yours and hear " Good-a-bi-ee " 
pronounced very softly and gravely by a little person 
of four years or so. 

Last night there was such an enveloping tumultu- 



200 ON DUTY AND OFF 

ous sunset of silver and gold and purple and black, 
later tinged with copper, as I have rarely seen ex- 
celled. It was alive — a vast, stormily passionate be- 
ing. 

To return to Sunday — at two o'clock O'Brien, 
Lieutenant and Madame Barret, two children, and I 
moulded ourselves into a victoria and drove some 
two or three miles into the country to the house of 
friends of the Barrets. (Lieutenant Barret is engaged 
at the Etat Major frangais here and hence thrown 
much with O'B.) We were taken into a room and in- 
troduced to some ten ladies and two men (varying in 
age from one year to at least ninety) and appointed 
chairs in the precise circle around the edge of the 
room. I thought we had got to a spiritualist meeting, 
but not at all — it was the ordinary lay-out for a 
Sunday afternoon party. After a bit the lady of ninety 
rose and said we would now make a tour of the gar- 
den. So we wandered through a very pretty propriet6, 
the old lady pointing occasionally to a place where 
there were about five trees deep of woodlands and 
saying with conviction, "You see, it is quite sauvage 
here." However, farther on it did more nearly ap- 
proach the sauvage. The gentleman of the party of- 
fered me his arm going down a little incline for fear 
that I should fall, stopping every few minutes to re- 
cite V. Hugo or de Musset to me. The whole party 
screamed when I stubbed my toe, and after ten min- 
utes' ambling I was anxiously asked whether I was 
too tired to go farther. We returned to the house and 
admired the baby, the miniatures painted by the 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 201 

daughter of the house, and some old enamels. And 
then we sat round the dining-room table and had 
(each as a separate course) hot chocolate, and a kind 
of rice custard and fruit pudding, plum pie, cherry 
pie, and wine. As I sat there and found the French 
wherewith to discourse on the girl-who-does n't- 
have-to-work-but-does-so-all-the-same of America, I 
could hear O'B. struggling with the semi-circular 
canals and their relation to sea-sickness. What was 
the priceless question they asked him? Oh, yes — did 
we have the Roman and Arabic numerals as they did ! 
We talked French solidly from half-past one o*clock 
till seven. 

July 17 
Every night at seven I read aloud to two eye cases 
— a farmer boy (who has also studied more or less 
law) of Wisconsin, and a law student of Oregon. We 
read about half an essay of Emerson and then some- 
thing out of the Literary Digest or sich, or O. Henry or 
Stevenson. It is great fun, but was especially so to- 
night, for we spent most of the time in hot discussion 
of the "Crumps with his grunting resistance to his 
native devils" question. Not that we hit that pas- 
sage — I wish I knew where it was so I could quote it 
to them. We had a fine time. Only the farmer is a regu- 
lar evangelicist, which rather cramps my style. He is 
less educated and less logical than the lawyer, but a 
good sort. 

There is quite a thunderstorm going on, which puts 
me in mind of dear old Paris — only no siren. 



202 ON DUTY AND OFF 

I 'm sorry, Father, about those silent letters. But I 
just wish you could see a poilu's spelling — it's much 
worse. 

July 22 
Never expect to write again — there is such a rush. 
One hospital is too much for one person and the fact 
that I have two simply means I accomplish nothing 
in either. I *m going to telegraph for another searcher, 
but probably shan't get one. 

I must rush over to the Y.M.C.A. now to get books 
for some of the men. 

Very entertaining evening yesterday (Sunday) 
chez les Barrets. 

Limoges, July 19, 1918 
I have just parted with quite an A No. i man — 
whom I enjoy being with from an outside, personal 
point of view, though I like plenty of others very 
much and enjoy them collectively. But I guess all en- 
joyment of any of them is over now, for the other hos- 
pital filled up last night and there are a great number 
coming to us to-morrow morning; so I shall have to 
attend strictly to the business of searching, and let 
the rest go. So we had the last of our Emerson par- 
ties to-night — we have read **Fate," ** Considera- 
tions by the Way," 'Tower," and ''War," the second 
seeming to us far the best. It has been great fun and 
we have had some hot discussions. 

Did I tell you I found a boy who goes up to Saranac 
in summer? I showed him the camp pictures in the 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 203 

F.C.P. book and we thrilled over them together — 
and I lent him M.'s picture of Saw Tooth, just to 
make him homesick. 

I have spent the afternoon with two of the boys, 
wandering through the grounds of a little chateau — 
have to go with them to see that they demean them- 
selves calmly, and I had a hard time keeping them 
from picking some magnificent great magnolia blos- 
soms. We had a good time watching the women wash 
sheep's wool in the courtyard wash-pool, and eating 
semi-wild raspberries and currants. The boys loved it 
and we wished all the convalescents could come. If 
the Red Cross ever gets a truck we can easily arrange 
some picnic parties, but the hospital ambulances are 
too busy and most of the boys are not able to walk 
very far. 

I never sent you Nenette and Rintintin, did I? 
They will protect you against Gothas and their 
American equivalent. They were originally in wool, 
but these are a touch-on-wood charm, too. 

I have had a thoroughly good time this week, for I 
know and am known at last. But, as I say, the pleas- 
ant part is over. I think when I come back I will learn 
to do something for shell-shock patients ; I 'm afraid 
there'll be plenty of them, poor lads. 

The news to-day and yesterday is so good that I 
am laying large bets the fighting will be over by Feb- 
ruary 1st. I go round the wards in the morning now 
and shout out the latest communique from the French 
morning paper — the English ones don't reach us 
from Paris till the evening. Seventeen thousand pris- 



204 ON DUTY AND OFF 

oners including two colonels and their 6tats-majors is 
pas mal. It is too thrilling. What would n't I give to 
be in Paris now! 

Tell every one with friends here to send snapshots 
of every kind of thing, all the time: the boys love 
them. 

July 30 
As the hospital is chock-a-block and my work is 
piled up feet high around me and everything in a per- 
fect mess, this seems a good chance to write a letter. I 
can never by any remote chance do any of the things 
I am supposed to with anything approaching com- 
pleteness, so what's the odds? 

There are so many things to write of that there is 
no use trying to take them up in an orderly way. 
These last ten days have been very trying, in a way, 
through my own idiotic habit of believing every- 
thing I am told. We had three hundred men in one 
night straight from the front, who said that Soissons 
had been taken, Soissons and Rheims brought to- 
gether, the bulge cut off, and all the Germans therein 
taken prisoner. So I got fearfully excited and have 
been having a horrible reaction ever since — as it, of 
course, was n't true. But a whole lot has been done, 
and the news right along is good, though slow. One 
trouble with a place like this is that you are out of 
touch with the men who do know something of how 
things are really going. Here you have either the 
medical officers or training-camp men, who, of course, 
don't know any more than you do except by superior 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 205 

intelligence ; and you have the men in from the front 
whom you inevitably believe and who are almost al- 
ways wrong. 

This morning I went down to see a hospital train 
unloaded. I and Marcella Burns (a new and emi- 
nently noteworthy acquisition) crashed aboard and 
had a fine look at the marvellous arrangements of our 
great sanitary trains before we were told it was for- 
bidden to be there. I will tell the world that train was 
something to see, with its sixteen great cars all shin- 
ing and new with big red crosses on the sides, the 
comfortable swinging bunks, beautifully complete 
pharmacy and medical supply room, office and type- 
writer, little room that can be used for emergency 
operations, and kitchens at either end. But, oh, dear, 
oh, dear — the boys when they were brought out on 
stretchers on to the station platform and lay in rows 
waiting to be put on to trucks were too, too sad. I 
don't know why they are so much more touching when 
they are on stretchers than afterwards in bed, but 
they are. We gave them all cigarettes and I lighted 
them and finally got so the match did n't blow out 
every time before the cigarette caught. One boy al- 
most cried when I gave him his cigarette, apparently 
just at the sound of a human voice talking English. 
Several Sundays I have been out to different little 
training camps, and they all say the same thing — 
that it sounds so good to hear English spoken — just 
as if they did n't hear their own comrades talking 
all the time. Apparently real English is spoken only 
by a woman. 



2o6 ON DUTY AND OFF 

I don't think I ever told you about any of these 
little camps, did I ? I happened on one my first Sun- 
day, 'way up in a little village on top of a high, high 
ridge. Some French girls I met en route and walked 
along with insisted that there were Americans up 
there who had dances every Sunday, and that I cer- 
tainly ought to go to see them. So they led me 
through the tiny village of only a score or so of 
houses, radiating from a very picturesque old church, 
and sure enough, there in a field was a circus tent 
with "Y.M.C.A." on it — the first rural **Y" I had 
seen. It had much the air of a real circus, as the 
whole village was there in its Sunday bonnet. A 
phonograph was playing, some one was singing, and 
there was a little candy counter in one corner. I 
talked with several nice boys, one of whom (because 
we were both from Boston) bought me some candy. I 
was n't in uniform and they almost fell over back- 
ward when they heard me speak English. 

In another little camp I arrived just before supper 
and was given a cup of their coffee out of a great 
boiler in the mess tent. The mess sergeant was a great 
friend of mine, for we had once talked together in the 
street-car on the occasion of his bringing a little 
French girl to Base Hospital 24 to have her toothache 
cured. Do you know, all these highly colored descrip- 
tions and sentimental magazine cover pictures of the 
American soldier and the little French child are per^ 
f ectly true ! You see it all the time. Every night I 
pass the H6tel de Ville, right beside a barracks, where 
there is a small green with a low stone wall around 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 207 

it, and a great round fountain in the middle, and it 
certainly is a pretty sight to see the place filled with 
Americans sitting on the wall and around the foun- 
tain, with children in their laps, hobnobbing with 
French of all ages and sexes, but especially with 
wounded French soldiers. The Americans and French 
get on beautifully — the people in these small places 
are wonderfully hospitable and friendly to the boys, 
and the boys seem to do by instinct just the kind of 
little thing the French like. I remember one tale, I 
forget who told me, of a village where a very poor sol- 
dier died. The family could not afford anything much 
in the way of a funeral, and there was almost no pro- 
cession to the cemetery. The coffin and few mourn- 
ers happened to pass a group of our boys, who at once 
stood at attention and then fell in behind and marched 
with them to the cemetery. Well, it took tremen- 
dously and the whole village would do anything for 
the boys after that. 

To return to the camp by the river. The mess tents, 
two or three of them, are right by the river on the very 
water's edge, and you don't know how picturesque 
it was to see the boys file down, mess tins in hand, to 
get their supper, and then seat themselves on the 
stone wall all along the river to eat their hot stew, 
soda biscuits, and coffee : — sunset reflected in the 
river — old arched bridge — little stone village on 
the steep hill above — all that sort of thing, you 
know. 

I was with a nurse from Alabama and we had quite a 
rally of the boys from the two sections of the country. 



2o8 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Do you know, I am becoming very enthusiastic 
over my job! Not over the job as it is, but over what 
it might be and will be if the personnel we have asked 
for goes through: two men and two women (search- 
ers) for each hospital, six workers for each hospital 
hut (of which there is to be one at each hospital to 
replace the "Y"), a warehouse and a truck. I can't 
begin to tell you of the difficulties we labor under at 
present in the way of no supplies and no money, 
though I am beginning to feel as if I had the pitcher 
of Baucis : I have a number of times given away liter- 
ally all the money I had except the price of a ticket to 
Paris and a franc for car-fares, and I always find, 
the next time I look, from five to twenty francs in my 
pocket. "Is n't that lovely?" as Jeanne de N. would 
say. 

It is very late to-night, for I have been trying to 
plan my monthy report, which has to be made out 
according to schedule. It is difficult to say just what 
Red Cross supplies I have given out, as in this I have 
worked almost entirely with the A.R.C. Hospital rep- 
resentative, Captain Tyson or Captain Barnes. To- 
gether we have distributed through the twenty wards 
approximately the following: 1760 magazines; 645 
French morning papers; 120 tins of Q.M. candy; 1800 
handfuls of cherries; 560 ** Newspaper" boxes of 
cigarettes and tobacco ; 50 picture puzzles (and inter- 
changed these a number of times) ; enough stationery 
for the wards. Besides these general supplies I have 
given to special cases for the Red Cross, approxi- 
mately: 42 pounds of fruit; 30 quarts of cold drinks; 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 209 

100 new books (also interchanged those already given 
out — about 40 in each ward) ; 3 cartons of cigar- 
ettes; 300 empty Red Cross bags; 150 toothbrushes 
for cases with specially bad mouths; 36 razors, with 
soap and brushes; 2 sets of breakfast china for 
Nurses' Home; 60 francs to men who had not been 
paid for many months. I have written about a hun- 
dred letters for or about patients; reported about six 
cases to Home Service Department in Paris ; found in 
the hospital some six men on enquiry lists; sent re- 
ports to Paris on about thirty-five men from missing 
lists. These figures apply to Base Hospital 24 only, 
and cover the period from June 19 to July 31, as I 
have done nothing for Base 13 except collect some 
old magazines from 24 for them and help Captain 
Lent distribute three thousand plums one day. Base 
28 is now open also, but it is at too great a distance 
for me to attempt to do anything there. 

Then I am going to add to this report that if 
there were two searchers in a hospital of nine hun- 
dred or a thousand beds, instead of one searcher for 
two of that size; that if there were a large stock of 
supplies and a more get-at-able revolving fund, — 
every boy would be known individually to the Red 
Cross and his special needs — whether they be for 
the various necessities he lost when he went over 
the top, or for the advance of part of the pay he has 
not received (again because he has been in the thick 
of action), or for somebody's eyes or arms to replace 
his, or for Home Service, or for some one just to talk 
to — could be met. 



210 ON DUTY AND OFF 

To-day I received a most beautiful trophy. One of 
the boys, whom I was n't aware of even having seen 
before, came up with me to my office, saying he just 
sort of thought he would — he 'd took the idea to 
come — and once up there he presented me with a 
seal ring which he took from a prisoner he had taken 
himself. It is a beauty — a black stone, oblong, with 
coat of arms. The lad said he had no relations to give 
it to and he was just going back to the front an3^way, 
and would probably be killed. So I have it. 

When I get home (that is now my one tune) the 
thing I shall make in odd time is comfort bags — 
just the empty bags. Every boy simply insists on 
having one and when you have twenty-four dozen 
made at a time from Red Cross money you, of course, 
get the cheapest strong stuff you can; whereas in 
making relatively few you could make them of really 
pretty stuff. 

August 2 
I shall never get the smell of wounds out of my 
nose ! Reading to the poor man whose eyes are in such 
an awful state almost makes me sick. To-morrow 
night, quite against my inclination, I am going with 
the nurses to a dance given by all the men around. I 
shall not enjoy it, for no one will dance with me. 

August 3 

I did not go to the dance after all. Instead, Mar- 

cella Burns and I walked out of the town a way and 

had a very simple supper in a garden, looking out 

over a deep gully with a baby river in the bottom, 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 211 

and a golden sunset over high hills; then we walked 
through the gullies and over the hills for a couple of 
hours — much pleasanter than a dance could be. To- 
morrow we and our respective Red Cross captains are 
going out into the country for lunch — it being Sun- 
day and we in need of recreation. 

My shoes and stockings arrived! And the shoes 
had silk stockings in them! with E C P in bleue 
blanc rouge on them! I showed them to the boys in 
the office and they were very envious and agreed that 
the E C P was the touch beyond. I am going to wear 
them to-morrow. At last, last week I bought two 
pairs of cotton stockings at six francs, and one wore 
through the second day. And they are just like 
boards, whereas these are deliciously soft. 

I hope it will be clear to-morrow so I can wear my 
new shoes. 

August 7 
It was, and I did, feeling like a perfect dude. I have 
just learned that J. is at Tours. I shall try to get there 
next Sunday, but am not sure I can work it. 

I am dead to the world to-night and came home to 
go to bed early, leaving my poor blind man unread 
to. However, I hulled and sugared and fed to him a 
big dish of strawberries this morning, and yesterday 
we had quite a long talk on the war and what he could 
do afterwards, which I think set him going a bit, 
though it did n't exactly cheer him. He had sunk into 
a sort of lethargy and would hardly speak — he still 
feels bitter, but that is not quite so bad. 



212 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Just had a telegram from Jamie saying *' Serai k la 
gare Tours dimanche 10.15. Bien aise vous voir" — so 
I shall go. 

A letter from Kenneth (who is with the French 
Army near Soissons) says: *'Nowwe are all much en- 
couraged. All the recent events are in our favor; the 
advance, the unrest in Germany, the continued up- 
heavals in Russia and the Ukraine, the distress in 
Austria, and the brilliant success of the Americans 
most of all. The Colonel of the Foreign Legion said 
that in all his experience he had never seen troops at- 
tack the way they did. All the French are enthusias- 
tic, it cheers them up enormously. The turning point 
has certainly been passed." 

August 13 
It is horribly late and I have spent most of the past 
twenty-four hours on the train, but if I don't now give 
you the outlines of my trip to Tours I never shall. 

Saturday evening, ten o'clock, I went bag in hand 
to the Red Cross canteen in the station, and slept 
there very comfortably, though all dressed, till two, 
when I had a dash of food and took the train. Slept 
more or less in the train, reached Chi.teauroux at 
half-past five. Excellent breakfast of chocolate, scram- 
bled eggs, bread with p^te and jam, and a doughnut 
(all for a franc), and a wash and brush. Train at 
half-past six for Tours. In first-class carriage with a 
French aviator and an American officer, engineer. 
No one at home would believe the kind of conversa- 
tions you have with casual acquaintances over here. 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 213 

We had a good time and talked most of the way to 
Tours, except for an hour or so when I slept with his 
musette for a pillow. We discussed wives and babies 
— particularly his, women and men's characteristics, 
the boys and what they do in France, human nature 
in general, etc. He is an engineer, and more recently 
an illustrator, and is now camouflaging batteries. 
Wife is illustrator. 

Reached Tours at half-past ten, and it certainly 
was good to see J.'s beaming face, topped with his 
overseas cap. I have taken some snapshots of him for 
you. We walked up the street, talking, to the 
Y.W.C.A. where I got a room, had a bath, etc. 
Lunched there and then went out to see the hospital. 
He certainly is well located, and I have never seen 
him seem better or happier. Everything seems to suit 
him to a T. Saw his room, etc. — but he will have 
told you all about it. And as we talked we ate some 
very good maple-sugar fudge, if I do say so, which I 
started for him and my kind and generous landlady 
finished as well as making him a **buche" — a big 
cake-roll with chocolate in the cracks. Walked round 
the little village he is in, and then went to Aviation 
Hq. to see if Colonels G. or D. were there — which, 
of course, they were n't. But the boy gave me some 
hope of flying if I went out to the field, so we went 
and walked for miles and miles and miles and miles, 
till we finally got there. But the CO., adjutant, etc., 
were out. We had a good chance, however, to see two 
types of Nieuport, a Salmson, Caudron, Breguet, 
and Liberty, both on the ground and in the air. It 



214 ON DUTY AND OFF 

was great sport. The guard said he feared there was 
no chance of being allowed to fly, but I could see the 
officer in charge the next morning between five and 
nine. Back and dined extremely well and went to a 
short bit of movie. Got to bed about midnight. 

Seven o'clock Monday, J. arrived, also a hack, and 
we drove out to the champ d 'aviation again and 
talked with the very nice officer in charge of flying, 
but all in vain. Army regulations — nurse recently 
killed at Issoudun — severe court-martial, etc., etc. 
So all we saw was more flying — but let me tell you it 
was a pretty sight to see the row of machines drawn 
up in line out in the centre of the field, with the sun 
shining on the morning haze. 

During the day I visited the A.R.C. office; we had 
our pictures taken on a post-card so that you could 
see that you had two children in uniform in France, 
and after lunch Jamie worked his passage past the 
M.P. and we took the train for Amboise. I will not 
tell you about the castle, nor about the castle of 
Chenonceau to which we motored, for you know them 
better than I do. I was to take the train at the lat- 
ter place at half-past four, but as the train was an 
hour and a half late we had bread-and-butter and 
coffee at a pretty caf6 hard by — where two engi- 
neers, first lieutenants, insisted on shaking my hand 
when they found I was American. Said they must 
just once ''shake the hand of an American woman in 
France." Finally got the train, sharing compartment 
with a very nice Frenchman, wife and child, and at 
first two Americans, later a Frenchman. The whole 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 215 

trip from Tours to Vierzon was supposed to be four 
hours, and in that time they managed to lose three 
and a half hours, so I lost my connection at Vierzon, 
though I had an hour and a half leeway. The others 
were in the same box, but we were lucky, for the car 
we were in was left on the track and we spent the 
night in it instead of on the floor of the waiting-room 
already solid with poilus, or trying in vain to get a 
room after midnight in some hotel. Slept very well, 
really. At six took train for Limoges — got off and 
had breakfast again at the Ch^teauroux A.R.C. can- 
teen, and finally reached Limoges at three. But 
my, what a journey — hot and simply never-ending! 
Wherever four or five houses were gathered together 
they called it a stop, and every stop was three quar- 
ters of an hour long. I was alone most of the way, and 
just lay and dozed — having broken my spectacles 
the day before. Just at first I had an exhausted avia- 
tor to guard and wake up at Issoudun. 

J. certainly gave me a fine time and fed and drove 
me royally. It was great to see him. We could n't 
either of us see that the other had changed a particle. 
But he certainly seemed happy as a clam at high 
tide. I hear, by the way, that the brother law is off, so 
I may come back; but I '11 go to La Fauche for a look 
around, all the same. 

Some of the boys were so nice about saying they 
were glad to see me back. The trip was worth it be- 
cause I found out how glad I was to get back to 
B.H. 24 if for nothing else! 



2i6 ON DUTY AND OFF 

Limoges y August 22 
It is after eleven and I have just come in from the 
most heavenly drive en auto — a farewell party. We 
(four A.R.C. representatives) started about half -past 
five or so for Eymoutiers, which was supposed to be 
about an hour's drive along the Vienne. Of course we 
made a few mistakes in the road, so we took a good 
while, but it certainly was lovely looking down from 
the steep, high side of the river valley at the river it- 
self — fairly broad, but with stones to ripple over — 
and the high banks opposite. Everything so green 
and luxuriant despite weeks and weeks of drought. 
And every little while little valleys would open up 
back into the hills. About quarter of seven the engine 
began to gasp, and finally stopped short, leaving us in 
front of a cottage and somewhere near St. L6onard. 
Complete lack of gasoline; and gasoline is not easily 
come by over here, I assure you — almost impossible. 
Well, we thought there were Americans at St. Leon- 
ard and the cottagers told us that was only five 
hundred yards beyond — but how to get there with- 
out the wearisome, time-taking process of walking? 
Suddenly, from the middle of a hedge a bit farther 
on there appeared an old fairy, disguised as a peasant 
woman, waving in her hand a quart bottle of gaso- 
line. Where she came from and how she divined that 
we wanted gasoline, I don't yet know% She said we 
could probably get some from the Americans, though 
most of them had gone, and could refill her bottle and 
leave it at the patisserie Petit Jean! It was miracu- 
lous. We pushed the car up to the top of the rise so 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 217 

the gasoline would flow into the engine, and reached 
St. Leonard all right, only to learn that the last 
American officer had left this morning. As we were 
wondering what we could possibly do, along came 
a U.S. car with two Americans and a French inter- 
preter and American wife, who without hesitation 
told us that the nearest place to get gasoline was 
Limoges. Then the clever enlisted man bethought 
him of a wrecked U.S. Ford on the green a few yards 
beyond. He found that there really was gasoline in it, 
and he drained it off for us — just about enough to 
get home on! But they roared with laughter when we 
said we were going to take supper in Eymoutiers and 
recommended our going back to Limoges, as nearer. 
So we decided to sup at St. Leonard, where we were 
— a very old village, on top of a hill with a gorgeous 
view over hill and dale — and at the moment a gold 
and flame sunset behind the blue mountains.We hap- 
pened on a hotel where various American officers had 
stayed, where they not only cheerfully agreed to light 
the fire and give us omelette, fried potatoes, steak, 
bread and fresh buttery jam, sponge-cake and coffee, 
but offered to find a Y.M.C.A. man for us to see 
about gasoline. He, luckily, had a friend who had a 
cousin who kept a garage, and he got us some more 
gasoline. So we had no fear in going home. Now, 
was n't that an extraordinary tale of good luck? If 
anything had happened at a different time or spot we 
should still be on the road to Eymoutiers. Well — the 
supper was absolutely excellent : the coffee the best I 
have had over here — American, of course, as well as 



2i8 ON DUTY AND OFF 

the sugar — the sponge-cake as good as you could 
ask — we each had a big piece and they were so re- 
gretful that they had n't known we were coming so 
they could have made us a big cake, for they knew 
Americans all loved cake. This is certainly the coun- 
try in which to get delicious meals in little villages. 
Imagine if we went to a place in America one third 
the size of Cotuit, at quarter of eight of the hottest 
day of the year, when the kitchen fire was out, and 
asked for dinner, what cordial response we should 
meet, and what food! 

We decided it was too late to go on to Eymoutiers, 
and so came straight home by a shorter and less 
beautiful road ; but we were sorry we did n*t go on, 
because, though we had no lights, it was very plain 
driving in the full moonlight and the only vehicles we 
met were American camions. I never saw a more radi- 
ant, overflowing, moonlight night — and so cool we 
were almost too cold, after a scorching day. There 
are several outdoor moments over here which I shall 
never forget, and this is one of them. 

It is now after midnight and I must go to bed. 
Work has been going well lately. Yesterday, to-day, 
and to-morrow I am doing up the wards fairly thor- 
oughly, spending about three quarters of an hour in 
each. I start off for a group of four or five wards with 
a great big market-basket so laden down that I can 
hardly carry it. This time I had an A.R.C. bag 
(empty), a clean piece of tape for his dog tag, a shav- 
ing-brush, and razor blades for every boy that needs 
them ; several little English-French dictionaries, decks 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 219 

of cards, one picture puzzle for each ward (Father's, 
by the way, I gave out when I first came and was 
awfully glad to have them because the ones ordered 
had n't come), and about three cakes of chocolate 
and two cans of sliced apple per ward — these latter 
two items for sale. You can buy only very little choc- 
olate at a time here. Then I had a few combs. 

I have been to-day with Nick Costello (the boy 
who gave me the ring and has since become my 
shadow, helping me distribute my wares, running er- 
rands, etc.) to see some French people with whom he 
has made great friends. Such a nice, honest young 
couple, who received us with great cordiality and 
gave us excellent coffee with rum in it. They have a 
little girl of four years, to whom Nick is devoted — 
she sat in his lap all the time we were there. There 
was such a friendly, simple relationship between him 
and this family; he has been to their house a great 
deal. 

On Easthound train 
August 28 

If you will forgive my jiggly train handwriting, I 
will tell you about the money which Cousin Fanny 
so super-angelically gave me. It is all spent already! 
And I don't believe that sum ever gave more pleas- 
ure. I cashed it all in five-franc notes and then went 
to every boy from the top to the bottom of the hos- 
pital and pursued the following conversation: 
Me: **Have you as much as five francs?" 
Boy (with first a look to indicate that I am mildly 



220 ON DUTY AND OFF 

crazy, and then a roar of laughter): ^'Five francs? 
Gee, Miss, I have n't seen five francs in five months" ; 
or, "Me? Why, I Ve forgotten what five francs looks 
like"; or, "Why, if I had five francs I believe I'd be 
well to-morrow so's I could go out and spend it." 

I never shall forget "the five-franc look" as long as 
I live. 

Those boys are shifted, just before pay-day, from 
one front to another, are wounded several times, per- 
haps, and go to half a dozen hospitals (so that they 
have n't been paid for from three to thirteen months) ; 
they lose every possession and every cent they have 
when they go over the top, and the result is they 
have n't a car-fare or the price of a hair-cut, even, let 
alone enough to get a meal once in a while outside the 
institution where they are incarcerated or to go to a 
movie. 

Just after I had been into one of the shack wards, 
where the convalescent cases are, I passed under 
the windows and I judge the boys were having a 
war-dance ; at any rate they were yelling with joy — 
"Wow, wow! Oh, Boy!" I never enjoyed anything 
more. I only wished I could have had a recording 
graphophone and a cinema machine to get the ex- 
pressions and tone of voice of those boys, and then I 
would run it off at the next Red Cross drive. 

I don't know whether this was the kind of thing 
she meant me to spend the money for, but the min- 
ute I heard it had come to me it flashed on me with 
the convincingness of truth that this was the thing to 
do. I hope she will think so, too. 



A U.S. BASE HOSPITAL 221 

I have acquired in the last three months such a 
personal and enthusiastic affection for the Army that 
it was the greatest pleasure in the world to be able to 
supply an important lack for the wounded of Base 
Hospital 24. 

\ September 7 
My boat is supposed to sail to-night, and I am on 
the train for Bordeaux. I have just said good-bye to 
Jamie, who joined me at Tours and went along for an 
hour or so on the train ; I hope he will get back in time 
for his convoy, and not get court-martialled for 
A.W.O.L. 

Such a hectic few days as I have passed in Paris, 
saying good-bye to every one, re-packing, and having 
my passport made out and visaed by fifty different 
people. 

One thing I did was to call on the Senateur de 
la Dr6me to try to obtain his influence in securing a 
bureau de tabac for Petit. The bureaux are usually 
given out to widows ; but as Petit has but one leg and 
only one useful arm, and two aged parents whom he 
must partly support, with only his corporal's pay of 
two francs a day, I think he classifies as a widow. He 
would be just the person for a bureau, for he is as 
bright as a steel trap and has a real social gift. Un- 
fortunately the Senateur was not yet in Paris, so I had 
to content myself with writing him a long letter. I 
have deposited fifteen hundred francs for Petit to 
draw on when he gets the bureau or to help set him up 
in whatever metier he undertakes ; I wish I could have 



222 ON DUTY AND OFF 

gone down to Loriol to talk with him about it, but it 
is too far. 

I ought to land about the i8th or earlier, and the 
first thing I shall have to do is hire a telephone booth, 
for I have promised numbers of New York boys that 
I would telephone to their families and tell them all 
the news. I am also to see one boy*s wife and sister 
(and sing them the song of the "Little Pigs*'), an- 
other's mother, and a third's friend. Then I am laden 
down with presents which have to be sent off to their 
fond friends : perfume, medals, sketches, bits of eclat 
from wounds, gloves, hand-made souvenirs, etc., etc. 
When I get to Boston I have so many families to see 
that I shall have a regular Home Service office of my 
own. And only two short months before I am back 
in France! 



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